The new Secretary of State told the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee that he recognises there are too many funding pots, with potentially overlapping criteria. He concluded “There needs to be some simplification and rationalisation” of funding arrangements and has asked the Department to lead on this.107 When we asked the Department specifically about net zero and levelling up the Department told us it had been asked to look at whether there is a case to simplify and rationalise both the processes around levelling up funds and the pots themselves. Its aim for levelling up was to move to a system where funding was divided into two funds, one focused on infrastructure and the other focused on people.108