Officials are refusing to release the justification for a controversial £25m handout to a Cabinet minister’s constituency approved by a colleague, a report reveals today.
Robert Jenrick, the local government secretary, is under pressure after his seat was among 100 winners from the £3.6bn Towns Fund, despite being only 270th on the most deprived list.
His department’s top civil servant cleared the grant, but has agreed to release only “a summary of his assessment provided in confidence” to the Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
Now MPs have warned that suspicions the award to Newark, the main town in Mr Jenrick’s Nottinghamshire seat, was “politically motivated” will linger, unless the secrecy is lifted.
Last month, Mr Jenrick admitted the decision was made by Jake Berry, a fellow minister, while he approved a grant to Mr Berry’s constituency.
Meg Hillier MP, the PAC’s chair, warned of a growing pattern of huge public spending on the pandemic “made in haste and without all the usual, legal checks and controls”.
“That makes it all the less acceptable to now be looking at billions of pounds handed out in an opaque process that has every appearance of having been politically motivated – long before Covid struck,” she said.
In a stinging report, the PAC concluded “the selection process was not impartial” – demanding to see the evidence that the Newark grant was above board “within one month”.
“This lack of transparency has fuelled accusations of political bias in the selection process, and has risked the civil service’s reputation for integrity and impartiality,” it said.
“To avoid accusations that the government is selecting towns for political reasons, the department should be upfront and transparent about how it reaches funding decisions.”
Mr Jenrick has defended the arrangement where Mr Berry approved his constituency’s grant – while he picked Darwen, in that former minister’s seat – as “perfectly normal”.
Boris Johnson was dragged into the row, when he claimed the award was “independently approved”.
The controversy came after Mr Jenrick survived the furore after he unlawfully approved a major housing development in a way that benefitted a Tory donor.
The policy saw officials in the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) draw up a ranked list of 541 towns based on need and potential for development.
The top 40 “high priority” locations were all selected – but ministers then picked another 61 “medium and low priority” towns from across the rest of the list, including one ranked just 536th.
The PAC has also criticised media statements which wrongly claimed the National Audit Office had concluded that its procedures were “robust”.
But a MHCLG spokesperson said: “We completely disagree with the committee’s criticism of the town fund selection process, which was comprehensive, robust and fair.”
