Jane Ellison
Main Page: Jane Ellison (Conservative - Battersea)
Greg Clark
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. Our hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) proposed the designation in the first place. Hon. Members will see in the national planning policy framework that we will capture a definition that will allow the people who know green spaces best—those who live with them—to provide them with the protection for which they have been looking for some time.
Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)
17. What steps he is taking to improve the transparency of spending in local government; and if he will make a statement.
The Minister for Housing and Local Government (Grant Shapps)
All local authorities in England now publish details of their £500 spend online and our Department routinely publishes a wide range of statistics on local authority spend. I say all local authorities but there is one exception to that rule—Labour Nottingham.
Jane Ellison
Ministers have already referred to the sound stewardship of Wandsworth council, which not only publishes everything over £500 spending wise but publishes the salary and expenses of all its staff who earn over £58,200. Will the Minister urge all public bodies to follow that lead?
Grant Shapps
My hon. Friend is absolutely right about this. It is incredibly important that public bodies follow that lead. Transparency is at the very heart of allowing citizens to take part in local democracy and hold public bodies to account, and I cannot imagine for one moment why any public body would want to hold out against that. It is extraordinary that some do and even more extraordinary that one of them is a major city authority such as Nottingham.