Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Austin of Dudley and Jim Cunningham

Monday 25th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

rose—

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

rose—

HMRC Staff: Dudley

Debate between Lord Austin of Dudley and Jim Cunningham

Wednesday 7th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ian Austin]

I completely agree. It is not party political knockabout to say that the introduction of universal credit is clearly not going according to plan. It has obviously hit some wrinkles along the road—that is a charitable way of putting it—and it is an odd decision to get rid of staff when we do not know how difficult it is going to be to properly introduce the new benefit.

The new regional centre for the west midlands will be in Birmingham. That led to the closure of the Walsall office in 2016, while the Worcester office is due to close next year and the Wolverhampton, Coventry and Solihull offices are due to close in 2020 or 2021.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I held a public meeting in Coventry at the end of January. There is a lot of concern because 300 jobs will go from the local tax office and people will either have to travel to Birmingham, or use a phone line, which is not always adequate for their needs. Does my hon. Friend agree that a halt should be called to this?

[Ian Austin]

My hon. Friend is completely right. Everybody knows how hard he fights for jobs in Coventry and that it cannot afford to lose those jobs, just like the Black country cannot afford to lose the ones in Dudley. The city council passed a motion unanimously, probably in no small part due to his campaigning.

It was announced that the Dudley office at the Waterfront and Merry Hill would be taken on by the Department for Work and Pensions, and that staff would transfer to that Department; a small number of staff would have transferred to the Birmingham office. Staff at that office employed by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to work on tax credits were told in 2015 that they would be transferred to the DWP to work on the introduction and implementation of universal credit. As recently as last October, they were told that they would remain at the Waterfront offices to work on the new benefit. Instead, at the end of January it was announced that the Government had changed their mind, that their jobs were at risk and that the office would close. That came as a huge shock to the hard-working, highly skilled and loyal staff. On the same day, DWP announced up to 150 job vacancies at the Waterfront site. Inquiries have been made and they are fixed-term appointments, although local discussions have revealed that they could become permanent. The announcement had little detail and more was promised, we were told, in April 2018.

It was originally envisaged that the Birmingham regional centre would have a capacity of about 3,200 full-time equivalent staff, but when the site of the Birmingham office was announced in October, that figure was reduced to 2,600. No official reason has been given for that, but sources are very clear that it is based on the high costs of premises in Birmingham. The figure of 2,600 did not include the Merry Hill staff, because they were due to go to DWP.

We have discussed the situation in Coventry, where hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham), have been campaigning. The same is true in Wolverhampton, where MPs also want their HMRC office to stay open. It has 300 staff and the local council also supports the campaign. Discussions have opened with Andy Street, the West Midlands Mayor, based on the combined authority agreement, which was signed by the then Chancellor with all of the West Midlands combined authority councils, and which uniquely states that there should be a regional Government hub in Birmingham and sub-regional hubs elsewhere in the region.

Technical and Vocational Education

Debate between Lord Austin of Dudley and Jim Cunningham

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Ian Austin]

If I may say so, that is a narrow party political point. I believe that the last Government took many great steps in education and skills, and if the hon. Gentleman bothers to listen, he might discover that I am saying some things that he and his party’s Front Benchers actually agree with. He ought to sit down, listen carefully and then perhaps contribute later to a serious debate about what I am saying should be the No. 1 priority for every political party.

We should agree as a country—all parties, Government, schools, universities, the teaching profession and businesses—clear long-term targets to transform education and ensure that we have the skills that we need to compete. We should set an ambition for Britain to produce the best-educated and most highly skilled young people in the world. Someone is going to do that, so why can it not be us? We have to drive up standards in our schools and get behind head teachers and teachers who are working to improve standards. If we recruit good teachers, motivate them, set high aspirations and tough targets, focus on standards and discipline and make the kids believe in themselves, the sky is the limit.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that companies such as Jaguar Land Rover need highly skilled and highly qualified technicians? Fairly recently, they were having difficulty recruiting them. If we cannot get people with high skills and technological qualifications, how will we expand our manufacturing base in the west midlands, for example? Does he agree that that is critical to the area?

[Ian Austin]

I completely agree. That is a critical issue, particularly in the black country, where we are getting the new engine plant. It is fantastic that Jaguar Land Rover is sponsoring a university technical college, and skills are crucial not just for JLR but for all the people in its supply chain.

Cycling

Debate between Lord Austin of Dudley and Jim Cunningham

Monday 2nd September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Ian Austin]

I agree with my hon. Friend. Our report recommended 20 mph speed limits in urban areas—for which The Times has been campaigning. I pay tribute to the contribution that she made to the inquiry. It would not have been such a success and the report would not have been written in the way that it was if she had not done so much work.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

Does my hon. Friend agree that a lot more can be done in schools to promote cycling proficiency, because safety is a very big element of this matter? Equally, should local authorities not do more through traffic management schemes?

[Ian Austin]

My hon. Friend is completely right. He did a lot of work on this matter when he was the leader of Coventry city council, before he became a Member of Parliament.

I do not want to criticise the Minister for cycling. He is a good man, he fights hard for cycling and he is a keen cyclist himself. However, the Government’s response to our inquiry was disappointing to say the least. The Government have promised that

“cycling will be at the heart of future road development”

and their response stated:

“The Government is committed to turning Britain into a cycling nation to rival our European neighbours.”

If the Minister answers one question in this debate, I want him to tell us how those two promises can be taken seriously when the Netherlands spends £25 per head on cycling while the UK spends just £2 per head, and when the highways budget in the UK is £15 billion, but the funds announced for cycling are just £159 million, with no dedicated funding stream that allows local authorities to plan for more than two years.

Our report makes a series of recommendations to boost cycling from less than 2% of journeys in 2011 to 25% by 2050. I ask the Minister why his Department’s response did not commit the Government to that target. We also want a national cycling champion to lead a drive for 10% of all journeys in Britain to be made by bike by 2025. As I said, the Minister fights hard for cycling and has done a good job of putting it on the agenda to the extent that it is. Although I do not want to criticise him personally, I point to the fact that he is a junior Minister from the junior party in the coalition, so it will always be difficult for him. We need someone with Cabinet-level clout to get different Departments working together.

Police Stations (Overnight Staffing)

Debate between Lord Austin of Dudley and Jim Cunningham

Tuesday 6th December 2011 Westminster Hall

[Ian Austin]

I think those in the public gallery have done their bit. They have every right to have their case heard.

Led by Chris Sims and his senior colleagues, the force has seen crime across the region fall over the last few years, but many of us are worried that the force will find maintaining its performance impossible, because it is being forced to cut its budget by £126 million over four years. It is losing 14.5% of its funding, one of the biggest cuts in the country. As a result, the force is losing 1,250 officers, recruitment has been frozen, and experienced and valuable officers are being forced to retire early because they have completed 30 years’ service. Other savings are being made in back office functions and administrative functions as well.

The force is now proposing that the front desk at Dudley and a number of other police stations be closed to the public during the evening or overnight. Dudley’s front desk has been closed to the public between 10 pm and 7 am for the last four years or so, but under the new arrangements the front desk would close at 6 pm and not open again until 10 am the next morning. I think it is fair to say that were it not for the need to save £126 million, West Midlands police would not have put this proposal forward. However, they have to make savings and they have put forward a number of arguments, which I will set out and deal with.

First, it is said that

“The review of front offices found that public demand is very low in the evenings and overnight and recommended that staff be redeployed back into contact centres to increase the efficiency of call handling.”

Secondly, the force will

“continue to provide 65 front offices open to the public; a service to local communities far wider than most other police forces offer across the country.”

Thirdly,

“households will never be more than four miles from a 24/7 police station”.

Finally, the force is looking for other locations in which to meet the public and more modern ways of communicating, such as Twitter and Facebook. The force has established a new appointments system so that officers will visit the public instead of expecting the public to come to them.

I am all in favour of new ways of communicating with people and having more locations in which the public can meet the police, but there are specific factors in relation to Dudley which I am not convinced the current proposals have taken into account. As soon as the proposals were brought to our attention, my colleague Councillor Shaukat Ali and I launched a petition asking that the proposal for Dudley police be dropped. The fact that more than 2,000 residents signed our petition in just a fortnight illustrates the level of local concern. Residents, businesses, publicans and students in the town all expressed their concern. The Central Dudley Area Committee held an emergency meeting and unanimously called for the proposal to be dropped.

There are a number of specific factors in relation to Dudley. First, the nearest station run by Dudley police for many will be at Brierley Hill, five or six miles away for many residents. Secondly, I receive frequent complaints about antisocial behaviour on estates near the town. Much of this obviously occurs during the evening, and people strongly value having a station open should they need it. Thirdly, Dudley is the largest town on the list and I do not think there is anywhere of similar size in the region that would not have a station open to the public in the evening.

I am all in favour of using new methods of communicating with people, but it is to the West Midlands force’s credit that it operates so many more open front desks than other forces. The fact that there is a busy and active, fully staffed station is very important to traders and shoppers.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend knows that we are in the same position in Coventry. It will be difficult for the public to get access to a number of police stations, particularly over the weekends, as a result of the reduction in hours. Not far from where I live is Chace police station, which is a major station for Coventry. More important, when anyone is arrested for alleged terrorism, they are normally held there until they are moved somewhere else. It is vital that the Minister take a serious look at this.

I do not know whether my hon. Friend has experienced another problem. At weekends, when crime is more likely, it is difficult to get a senior officer at these stations to talk about certain incidents that may happen in the centre of Coventry or in different locations in Coventry. Several police stations in my constituency, but equally in the other two MPs’ constituencies, will be experiencing the same thing. It is vital that people have an open police station at the weekends so that they can get to the people they want. It is no good leaving sergeants in charge.

[Ian Austin]

My hon. Friend is correct. There are various ways in which his and my stations could be kept open in the evenings and, in his case, at weekends by looking for savings in other areas. It would help if the force was not being forced to find this level of savings in the first place.

As in Coventry, specific factors in Dudley mean that it is important to have a station open in the evening. We have got £30 million being spent right now on new college and sixth-form buildings in the town centre, which will result in hundreds more young people in and around the town during the evenings. The new college includes a theatre, which will bring hundreds of visitors to the town at night. Our town centre market is about to be rebuilt, strengthening the town centre economy with, again, more activities in the evening. Several pubs and cafés and a wine bar are currently being refurbished. Much of the regeneration of the town centre is based on driving up trade and activity in the evening. Finally, there is strong public support for my campaign to open up the castle in the evenings during the summer for concerts and plays, which would bring thousands more people to Dudley during the evenings.

On the number of visitors, the force’s own figures show that a third of front desk enquiries come between 6 pm and 10 am. That is bound to increase as a result of our ambitions to boost the town’s night-time trade and visitor economy. In the light of these particularly local factors, I want the Minister to ask the force to reconsider this particular proposal. Not unreasonably, the chief constable says that if front desks are not closed, savings will have to be made elsewhere. I understand that, but I need to be convinced that all possible savings have been found from administrative and back office functions before front-line services such as Dudley’s front desk are cut.

Forces across the country buy pretty much the same cars and other vehicles, uniforms, protective clothing and equipment. They use similar computer systems and so on. Will the Minister explain why individual forces are still procuring cars, vehicles and equipment individually and separately instead of driving down costs by purchasing centrally and getting bigger and better deals for the taxpayer? Will he tell me why we have police, fire and ambulance services in the west midlands operating separately instead of merging some common functions? Why do they all need separate finance, human resources and PR departments, for example? Why have we got 40 separate local or regional police forces across England—four in the west midlands alone—all providing different and separate services instead of sharing expertise and knowledge, as well as administrative functions and computer systems, for example?

Rationalising such functions would save a fortune, but I can think of other savings that we could be making, too. Many of the areas I have listed are precisely the areas that we identified as part of the 12% efficiencies that we would have made over four years, rather than the 20% cuts that have been front-loaded and that are being imposed on police forces at the moment. Is it not the case that the Government’s decision to go much further and much faster has probably impeded forces’ abilities to make efficiency savings, which would take time to work out with other police forces, but would limit the impact on the front line? They are being forced to do these things more quickly and more severely. That has forced them into quicker but more damaging savings, such as reducing the number of front-line officers and closing stations in the evening instead of the administrative and procurement savings that I have suggested.

We should also consider why the police authority and force are based in costly offices in the middle of Birmingham city centre, which is probably the most expensive place to run a service anywhere in the west midlands. Like me, I am sure my hon. Friends the Members for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) and for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) could identify offices in their own constituencies where services could be provided much more cheaply.

The Minister will no doubt say that he cannot do much about where the authority is based, but he ought to be ensuring that it has found savings from all the other areas before touching the front line. He can certainly do something about the way the police force is funded.

The police authority and leaders from all parties in councils across the region have made representations to Ministers on two specific issues. Although all police authorities have been subject to some reduction in the Government grant, authorities such as the West Midlands police authority have effectively been penalised because they kept precept increases to a minimum over the past few years. They are, therefore, more reliant on the Government grant compared with authorities such as Surrey, which increased precepts at a faster rate and are therefore less reliant on the Government grant.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

My hon. Friend makes a comparison between the west midlands and Surrey. In the west midlands the authority relies on an 80% grant from central Government, whereas in Surrey it is the reverse. That shows a real disparity.

My hon. Friend also mentioned efficiencies. I do not have a lot of evidence, but once or twice I have noticed that during an incident such as the arrest of a person for causing a problem on a bus, it can sometimes take six police cars to surround that bus and remove the individual. When talking about efficiencies, perhaps that practice should also be examined.

[Ian Austin]

My hon. Friend is correct. Total spending power—the Government grant and the precept—in the west midlands will reduce by over 4% in 2011-12, compared with only 1.5% in Surrey. As the Minister will know, that position is exacerbated further by the application of grant damping, together with the “floors and ceilings” that have been applied every year since the last funding formula review. As a result, the West Midlands police authority will receive £27 million less than its full formula entitlement, whereas Surrey will receive £4 million more. It means that the West Midlands police authority, which has one of the highest policing demands in the country, will be forced to make the biggest percentage reduction in spending, while areas such as Surrey that have much lower need and demand will make the smallest reductions. As the West Midlands police authority says,

“this is neither fair, reasonable nor indeed equitable.”

Stations such as those in my constituency would not be faced with closure in the evening if the Government introduced arrangements that properly reflected the need and demand for policing services in the west midlands, and which treat that area and the people who live and work in it fairly and equitably.

I will suggest one other saving. Although I am not against elected police commissioners in principle, I am not sure how they will find enough things to keep them busy and in particular to justify their enormous salaries—I thought about that when I visited the police authority last week, and it is an interesting point. One argument that was recently advanced for police commissioners cited the great job that we were told the Mayor of London did during the recent riots. The Mayor of London, however, looks after a whole range of services and functions across the city, and has a much bigger area of responsibility than simply the police. I am not sure what police commissioners will do to justify being paid £100,000—as I understand it, the police commissioners in the west midlands will be paid £100,000, and they will be the best paid in the country. That seems an odd priority when resources are so scarce that we are losing 1,200 officers and face the evening closure of stations such as that in Dudley.

Finally, does the Minister think that the officers in question and my police station’s front desk are front-line services? I would have thought it difficult to identify anything more front line than a full-time police officer and a public inquiry desk. At the election, the Prime Minister promised that there would be no front-line cuts, and that any Cabinet Minister who proposed them would

“be sent straight back to their department to go away and think again.”

Does the Minister think that the cuts in question are front-line cuts, and will he do what the Prime Minister promised would happen under such circumstances and think again?