As ever, oral parliamentary questions in Parliament offer MPs the opportunity to scrutinise Ministers and their departments but more importantly they allow MPs to champion local causes and businesses.

In today’s oral parliamentary questions, I was able to raise the work of Northwood youth club here in the constituency. This club provide a range of extraordinary services for young people including activities such as cooking, sports, arts and other pursuits. To support the work of such youth clubs, the Government has established a youth investment fund on. I asked the Secretary of State what progress has been made on distributing these funds to youth clubs across the country.

In her response, the Secretary of State informed me that the fund opened for applications earlier this year in August and that they are expecting to announce the first awards early next year.