Joan Walley
Main Page: Joan Walley (Labour - Stoke-on-Trent North)(13 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberI 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.
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.
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.