Business of the House

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Thursday 19th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

That is a very good idea. Perhaps we could suggest it to the Backbench Business Committee. The national lottery is a great Conservative achievement from 21 years ago, and perhaps we could use a debate to celebrate a great Conservative achievement today. Finally we have a Government who are really determined to drive up economic activity in the north, compared with the last Labour Government, under whom the proportion of manufacturing industry in our economy fell by half and the north bore a disproportionate brunt of it.

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

In this age of austerity, I am sure the Leader of the House is as astonished as I am that my local authority, Stoke-on-Trent City Council, which is run by a City Independents and Conservative coalition, has reportedly just spent £500,000 on getting rid of its chief executive. May we have, as a matter of urgency, a debate in Government time on golden parachutes in the public sector?

[Chris Grayling]

Every local council is accountable to its local electors for the decisions it takes. None of us would ever wish to see local authorities spending money unnecessarily, but, of course, I have no idea about the nature of the contract and the circumstances behind that pay-off, so it would be wrong of me to comment on it.