Oral Answers to Questions

Joan Walley Excerpts

Monday 17th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

I congratulate my hon. Friend’s local authority. Sharing services is surely the way forward. Nowadays there is no real excuse for having separate management teams, separate chief executives and expensive, well-paid officers to fill every position. Sharing can prevent the cuts from falling on the most vulnerable and needy members of society, and I congratulate my hon. Friend’s local authority on doing exactly that.

[Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

Given that today is the last day for representations to be made in the formal consultation on the grant settlement for local authorities, will the Minister assure me that he will take seriously the representations from Stoke-on-Trent and its Members of Parliament during our welcome meeting with him last week? We cannot afford these cuts.

[Andrew Stunell]

I thank the hon. Lady and her colleagues from Stoke-on-Trent who came to see me last week. I assure her that her words and theirs were clearly heard, and that they will be taken into account along with all the other representations that we have received.