Susan Aitken and Douglas Ross have clashed over rats and rubbish in Glasgow.
Ross said bins were overflowing and there were rats on the streets and he asked Aitken if she felt “embarrassed”.
Aitken said she was “never embarrassed” by Glasgow and accused Ross of being “gratuitous” in his comments about Glasgow.
The Scottish Tory leader quizzed the SNP leader of Glasgow City Council along with other MPs at the Scottish Affairs Committee, which was meeting in Glasgow to discuss preparations for COP 26.
At the end the question session it descended into a political spat between the SNP and Conservatives over who was to blame for problems in Glasgow.
Aitken said: “There has been one, possibly two small incidents where there was a health and safety incident and an employee was taken to hospital for a minor contact with a rat.
“It’s not unheard of that our cleansing employees come into contact with rats.
“All cities have rats.”
She added: “Look at any local paper headlines and you will see similar issues. We treat these issues with employees extremely seriously.”
Ross questioned whether you could have minor contact with a rat.
The Tory leader then asked the council leader if she “regretted” some of her previous comments including that Glasgow only needed a “spruce up”.
The pair repeatedly talked over one another with Ross unwilling to allow Aitken to expand on her answers.
She said she did not regret any comments.
The council leader added: “I would never use the kind of language about this city that you have used.
“I don’t shy away from the challenges.”
Aitken had said that Edinburgh had been impacted more in terms of cleanliness during the pandemic but nobody questioned its ability to host the Festival.
Ross said that both cities were run by SNP administrations.
Aitken said many of the challenges in Glasgow were the result of post-industrial decline and the impact of the policies of the Thatcher Tory government in the1980s.
As the pair spoke over one another, eventually the chair of the Committee, Pete Wishart, SNP MP, had to bring the confrontation between the two to an end.
He said: “We have had enough of this.”
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