Citizens Advice Bureaux (Birmingham)

Debate between Lord McCabe and Jack Dromey

Wednesday 9th February 2011 Westminster Hall

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Sheridan, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.

This is a debate of immense importance for the people of Birmingham. The Birmingham citizens advice bureau is the oldest and largest in the country, dating back to 1939. Progressively, the Birmingham CAB opened five offices in Birmingham to meet great and growing demand. Last year, the Birmingham CAB provided advice and support to 56,000 people. For those who find it hard to access mainstream services, it also provides a comprehensive web of outreach services in, for example, GP practices, children’s centres, hospitals, dementia advice projects and Macmillan Cancer Support.

The Birmingham CAB employs 100 full-time staff, who work with a dedicated army of 166 volunteers, including the excellent Paul Ballantyne who is here today and who is the chair of the trustees, and the excellent John Orchard, a volunteer for the CAB. Both have both devoted many years’ work to the CAB in support of the most vulnerable people in Birmingham. And vulnerable they certainly are; in Kingstanding, in my constituency, we have a CAB in one of the poorest and most deprived wards in Britain—much cherished by the people who live in the ward.

Birmingham has been hard hit. The west midlands has the highest unemployment anywhere in Britain. Just when the people of Birmingham need somewhere to go for support and advice, the generalist advice services of all five citizens advice bureaux will close. Why? On the one hand, it is a combination of the callous cuts being made by the Government to local government services in Birmingham, where £170 million will come out of the budget next year alone; and on the other hand, the cruel incompetence of the council.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

I do not know if my hon. Friend saw the Prime Minister’s very helpful comment in The Sunday Telegraph, when he said that councils should look to reduce their chief executives’ salaries before they cut citizens advice bureaux. Given that the chief executive of Birmingham is one of the highest-paid in the country, should he and some of his senior officers not take a cut before the CAB?

[Jack Dromey]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. The last thing that should be cut is advice to the people of Britain from citizens advice bureaux. If there are to be reductions, they should start at the top in Birmingham city council.

The CAB had been planning for some council cuts for some time, going back to March 2010, but suddenly, out of the blue, the bureaux were told in December just before Christmas that they would lose all their funding from March 2011. The CAB then made repeated approaches to the council to try to find a way forward. What have they been told? “Sorry, you will have to close by March, but you can reapply for a fresh funding stream in August this year.” That means that the CAB’s generalist advice services will close down for five months, with no certainty whatever that there will be support afterwards.