Government yet to respond to TVCA letter, even after ‘six months’

Six months after sending a letter to the Government, a combined authority is still waiting for a response.

Thursday 27 March marks exactly six months since the Tees Valley Combined Authority (TVCA) Cabinet agreed and sent a letter to Angela Rayner, the Secretary of State for the Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government (MHCLG).

The letter from TVCA Cabinet was in response to the recommendations set out in the Tees Valley Review. The independent review was commissioned by then-Secretary of State Michael Gove in 2023, following allegations of corruption at Teesworks, the major industrial site. Allegations were made by Labour MP Andy McDonald in the House of Commons. Tees Valley Conservative Mayor Ben Houchen denied the claims at the time.

The review found no evidence of corruption or illegality, but questions were raised over governance and transparency linked to the regeneration of the site. 28 recommendations were made, of which 26 were for the combined authority to act on, while two were for the attention of the Government.

MHCLG has been asked three times by the Local Democracy Reporting Service in the last six months for a timeline on when Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen and the wider TVCA Cabinet could expect a response from the Government. The most recent request for an update has come in the last few days. Responses from MHCLG have been along similar lines each time, thanking the mayor for his response and guaranteeing a response from the Government in “due course” but no specific timeline has ever been provided.

Related to the Tees Valley Review, it has been almost a year since then-Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves, pledged to send in the National Audit Office (NAO) to investigate Teesworks if Labour won the general election. When asked for the current stance on this matter, the Government declined to provide any certainty. Ms Reeves was non-committal on whether the NAO would conduct an investigation into the Teesworks project shortly after Labour’s election victory in July 2024, during a visit to Darlington.

There was media speculation in January 2025 that there was an increasing likelihood of an NAO investigation, however this did not materialise into anything substantive in the following weeks. As part of wider questioning on the Tees Valley Review, when MHCLG were asked for clarity on whether the NAO would or would not be sent in to Teesworks, the Government department chose to not respond to the specific query.

The Government was also asked if it would be possible to share an update on how they were getting on actioning the two recommendations of the Tees Valley Review that were intended for them. In January, a TVCA committee heard that all applicable recommendations had been acted upon by the combined authority. MHCLG also declined to respond to this specific request.

In response to questions put to the Government, A MHCLG spokesperson said: “We thank the mayor for his response to the independent review and will respond in due course. It is right that we consider this, and any further relevant information, in detail before determining whether further action should be taken.”