A government website which asks the public for advice on how to cut spending has become a forum for "racist and offensive" comments, according to a Labour front bencher.
Speaking in the Commons this afternoon, shadow Treasury minister Angela Eagle said the Spending Challenge website which solicits ideas from the public on how to cut public spending was filled with "drivel".
Eagle said suggestions posted on the site included "sterilising the poor, reopening the workhouses, asking single parents who can't finance their children to terminate the pregnancy, benefit claimants to work in sweatshops and immigrants to be moved out of cities".
"Are you happy that this kind of drivel, racist and offensive, is being hosted by one of your websites?" she asked chief secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander.
She added: "This stuff should be removed immediately".
But Alexander said while those particular suggestions were "of course not ideas I would wish to promote", he defended the decision to launch the website.
"I'm very surprised that the hon. Lady pours scorn on the consultation process," he told MPs.
Alexander said the Coalition had also received "up to 66,000 ideas from people in public sector who are suggesting savings in their own services" which he said was a "valuable part of the spending review process".
He added: "We have not had a single idea from party opposite. Let alone the apology that is warranted".
Chancellor George Osborne opened the public consultation up to taxpayers outside the public sector last week.
The website does allow users to report "inappropriate" comments and ideas to a moderator.
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