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After years of crippling Tory austerity, and with Brexit just 25 days away, Theresa May is giving the country some money.

The Prime Minister is unveiling a £1.6billion fund for "left behind" towns in the former coalfield areas of the Midlands and North.

The money is being blasted as a "bribe" and a "bung" to Leave-voting areas to encourage their (mostly Labour ) MPs to vote for her Brexit deal.

The government insists it's not a bribe, of course.

"This funding is there regardless of the outcome," said Communities Secretary James Brokenshire. "Theres no conditionality in that sense."

But bribe or no bribe, how much money is there?

(Image: WPA Pool)

£1.6billion sounds like an awful lot of money. But when you break it down, it's suddenly a lot less.

Here are a few reasons it's being branded "pathetic" and a "drop in the ocean".

1. It's spread over SEVEN years

(Image: AFP/Getty Images)

The fund is spread over SEVEN years, from 2019/20 to 2025/26.

Communities Secretary James Brokenshire today admitted "it’s through until 2026" as "you may have investments that will need to be put in place over a number of years".

Yvette Cooper, Chair of the Labour Towns group of MPs, said: "Spreading the money over 7 years is too little to close the widening economic gap between cities and towns or to turn around towns that are still being hit by austerity and are crying out for new investment."

2. It's shared between countless towns

(Image: Mark Thomas/REX/Shutterstock)

Interviewed by the BBC this morning, minister James Brokenshire couldn't say how many towns will be involved.

Instead, he said: "That will be for the towns themselves to bid into."

What's more, huge swathes of the country will only be able to bid for a tiny pot of cash.

The £1.6bn ‘Stronger Towns Fund’ will be in two parts - £600m for a biddable pot and £1bn allocated by need.

The South East will get just £37 million, the South West £35 million, and the East of England £25 million.

By comparison, the North West will get £281 million, the West Midlands £212 million, Yorkshire and the Humber £197 million, the East Midlands £110 million and the North East £105 million.

3. It's less than years of Tory austerity

(Image: Getty Images)

Tory austerity sucked £700million more out of the North and Midlands than the new fund is worth for the entire country, a campaign group claimed.

New analysis by Best for Britain shows more than £2.3 billion has been sucked out of 34 “coalfield” areas since the Tories came to power in 2010.

It means on average the 34 council areas have seen cuts of £70 million to their funding, slashing their spending power dramatically.

Meanwhile it comes as a major journalism project, including HuffPost UK, suggests councils across the country are selling off hundreds of millions of pounds of public assets just to make ends meet.

Shadow Communities Secretary Andrew Gwynne said: "Austerity has hollowed out the heart of our communities.

"Cuts have forced many councils to sell off their parks, community centres, libraries, cut back on staff and the neighbourhood and care services that all of us rely on, and push up council tax - just to keep the lights on."

Stoke MP Ruth Smeeth said: "This is less money than is being taken out of my economy by the introduction of Universal Credit over the next four years.

"It’s an extraordinarily pathetic amount of money."

And fellow Stoke MP Gareth Snell tweeted: “The entire allocation for the West Midlands over four years is LESS than the total value of cuts faced by Stoke-on-Trent City Council alone over the same period. This is a huge disappointment.”

4. It's even less than the government's own growth fund

(Image: Getty Images)

Compare and contrast. As deputy PM in the Tory-led Coalition, Nick Clegg unveiled a Regional Growth Fund in 2013.

It was worth £3.2billion - exactly double today's pot.

Chris Hearld, North Region Chairman at KPMG UK said:“Today’s Stronger Towns Fund announcement is positive, but as always, the challenge will be in the delivery.

“The left behind towns which Brexit has acutely highlighted haven’t just skipped a recent funding round - their problems are more deep rooted.

"They have often suffered from structural weaknesses in education, connectivity and infrastructure. If this fund is going to make a difference it must target critical geographical areas across the country and specific investment criteria."

5. It's less than the DUP got for Northern Ireland

(Image: Leon Neal)

In exchange for propping up the Tory government, the DUP signed a deal in 2017 that was worth £1.5billion for Northern Ireland - but with a potential review after just two years.

The region was given £1billion of new money and "new flexibility'' in almost £500m already committed.

The government made £400 million available for infrastructure development in Northern Ireland.

A further £150 million was spent on ultrafast broadband in the province.

£200 million went towards "transforming the health service" and schools and hospitals in Northern Ireland got £100 million to "address immediate pressures."

A further £100 million went to "target pockets of severe deprivation", despite continuing welfare cuts and the benefit freeze in Britain.

And finally... It's less than what MPs fear we'll lose from Brexit

(Image: Wiktor Szymanowicz / Barcroft Images)

MPs fear a badly-done Brexit, or even a well-done one, will leave the economy with billions of pounds less than if we had simply stayed in the EU.

Labour MP Alex Sobel, of the anti-Brexit People’s Vote campaign, said: “This is a drop in the ocean compared to what we now know will be lost if the Prime Minister’s Brexit plan goes ahead."

Mark Robinson, chief executive of public sector procurement firm Scape Group, said the fund "will provide local councils with extra cash to spend on local priorities."

But he warned: "This misleading post-Brexit pay-out should not be mistaken as a genuine bid to invest in our regions.

"[It is] rather a necessary attempt to replace current EU cohesion funding that these towns would have otherwise received."