Business of the House

Barbara Keeley Excerpts

Thursday 17th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We need tailored individual support to get people back into work. Under the Work programme, to be introduced later in the year, we will have payment by results. Providers, whether from the independent sector or the private sector, will be remunerated when people are in sustainable, long-term employment, rather than as with previous programmes, where payment was simply to get someone off the register for six months. Sadly, over half of those people were back on benefits by the seventh month. I hope that the structure of our Work programme will have the results that my hon. Friend wants.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government was asked on the BBC “Today” programme about having debates on senior pay in council chambers, which he is insisting on, but not on senior pay in Whitehall in this Chamber. He said:

“I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t have this kind of debate in the House of Commons.”

We have heard that the Secretary of State gets confused about which sector he is talking about, so can the Leader of the House tell us whether he has any plans for a debate in Government time on senior pay, and will he extend it to low pay, which Opposition Members think is just as important?

[Sir George Young]

Of course low pay is important, but the hon. Lady’s question focused on what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government said. As far as civil servants are concerned, Select Committees have adequate opportunity, particularly when they look at the accounts of individual Departments, to hold the Minister to account on the salaries that are paid in the Department, and it is always open to have debates on the Floor of the House about the structure of salaries in the civil service. Of course, there is a defined salary structure in the civil service, whereas there is slightly less clarity in relation to local government and the chief executives, so I do not think it is an exact parallel.