Oral Answers to Questions

Ann McKechin Excerpts

Tuesday 8th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I certainly join the hon. Lady in paying tribute to everyone who worked on the growth deal in her area. Over the next few years, growth deals collectively will represent a transfer of £12 billion of Government money away from Whitehall—out of Departments here in London—and into the hands of local communities and local enterprise partnerships. That is a really big, bold act of decentralisation, which I think will finally break the back of the excessive centralisation from which we have suffered for far too long.

[Ann McKechin (Glasgow North) (Lab)]

T14. The coalition agreement provided for a limit on the number of special advisers, but since 2010 the number has increased. Will the Deputy Prime Minister tell us what he personally will do to place a limit on it?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As the hon. Lady will know, special advisers play a very important role in all Governments. Of course they need to be held to account, and of course we need to be entirely transparent about how many are employed, what they are paid, and so on. We have taken unprecedented steps in publishing that information. Special advisers play a particularly important role in a coalition. We have two parties seeking to work—as we generally do—productively and co-operatively within the Government.