asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will review the programme areas and include the Stanley district plan area of Sefton in the Liverpool inner city partnership, linked as Manchester and Salford are linked.

As my right hon. Friend said in his statement on inner city policy on 14 September, we believe the bulk of the urban programme moneys available must continue to go to the worst areas, in terms of scale, concentration, and intensity of deprivation, and that these areas are by and large the partnership and programme authorities. But we shall be looking carefully at the basis of selection of authorities in the course of the next year.