Jobcentres and the DWP Estate

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Thursday 20th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Evans. It is also a pleasure to see my old friend from the Strathclyde fire board, the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Bill Grant). I can confirm that he is a bit of a wind-up merchant, but his comments failed to address the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) started with. The issue is the structural poverty and historic unemployment and deprivation that Glasgow and the west of Scotland still see as a result of the Tory legacy from the ’80s and beyond. This Tory Government seem set on compounding that poverty and misery and making it worse. They are not looking at the communities that the cuts affect; they are looking only at lines on a map or on Google Maps. They are not looking at the Scottish index of multiple deprivation, as my hon. Friend mentioned. If that index was placed over the map, they would see that the cuts are falling on the poorest communities and those who need support the most. They deserve support the most, because they are the furthest away from the labour market.

I do not know whether the Minister has since taken it down, but when he had us over to his office after the cuts were announced, he had an enormous poster on his wall, right behind where he sat. It was a kind of heat map of the joblessness figures for the whole country, and Glasgow was a great big red beacon on that map. That is exactly where the cuts are falling and where support is needed the most.

My hon. Friends have mentioned the issues with the digital divide. They talked about how difficult it is for people, such as the character in “I, Daniel Blake”, who are pencil by default rather than digital by default. That is true of people in the east end of Glasgow and many of the poorer communities in Scotland. Citizens Advice Scotland did a report a few years ago called “Offline and left behind”, which pointed out that the majority of CAB clients it sees would struggle to apply for benefits and jobs online. That will continue to be the case, because many of them are older workers and further away from the job market. The hon. Member for Midlothian (Danielle Rowley) mentioned the 1950s women affected by the state pension changes. The Government have made great play of trumpeting that there will be support for those women. Where will that support be if the infrastructure they rely on is taken away from their communities?

I have mentioned before in the Chamber that I met a women in my constituency outside Bridgeton jobcentre, which is due to close. She was in bits. She was a WASPI woman who was being forced back to work. She was continually receiving letters calling her into Bridgeton jobcentre. Because it was just down the street from her house, she was able to get her baffies on to get there, but she was scared going in. She was terrified. She was crying going in and coming back out. These are the kind of women who need to be able to access support nearby. Getting up, getting fully dressed, getting on a bus and travelling to the other end of the city would be too much for her. She would fall out of the system and get no support at all. That is not acceptable, and it is not the kind of society we want.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) asked, who will pick up the slack? Who will take up the burden when the jobcentre has gone away? It will be services such as the Scottish Association for Mental Health and the Glasgow Association for Mental Health, which provide so much support to people with mental health issues that are preventing them from taking a job, caused by trauma they have experienced or issues they have had in their lives. Those issues are multiple and complex, and we ignore them at our peril.

The Government are content to let the voluntary sector, food banks and charities pick up where the state has left off and rolled back. The Tory Government are obsessed with dismantling the social security infrastructure of our nation. The things that were put in place to help and support people when they need it most are all being unravelled. That speaks to the issue with the HMRC offices and the DWP back offices. In a lot of cases, they were placed so as to facilitate economic growth in areas that had issues. The hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Hugh Gaffney) illustrated that perfectly by talking about the impact on the wider community of the 250 jobs and £4,000 a week. I would not be surprised if the figure were higher. It is a small sample—a snapshot in time—of the people who go there to work and use the local sandwich shop or the local paper shop. They will buy things in the high street on their way to and from the office. That is true of every single jobcentre that the Government propose to close. Closures will have an impact on the local economy. Empty buildings will be sitting in communities going unused and becoming derelict.

[Mr Sweeney]

The hon. Lady will know that many communities in Glasgow have seen regeneration of their high streets. In particular, there are many great regeneration initiatives in Glasgow that aim to find new and innovative uses for high streets. Surely a progressive measure would be for the DWP to work in partnership with regeneration agencies in Glasgow to look at options such as collocation that would drive vibrancy back into high streets, drive economic activity, drive better job opportunities into communities and create a virtuous cycle of economic growth in Glasgow and around the UK. That is surely what the DWP should be looking at, rather than having a silo mentality of cutting overheads at the expense of everything else. It should be looking at how it can crowd in growth and opportunities through other more entrepreneurial activity, such as collocation.

[Alison Thewliss]

I absolutely agree with the point that the hon. Gentleman makes. Clyde Gateway, which works in my constituency and across the boundary into Lanarkshire, is a prime example of that. It was not consulted. It has been the driver for economic regeneration in the east end of Glasgow. It has got people into work. It has looked at the people who are furthest away from the job market and got them into apprenticeships and real paying jobs against all the odds of ill health and deprivation, but it was not consulted or involved in the process. It was not asked about collocation. It would bite the Government’s hand off if they wanted to move HMRC offices from the city centre out to the east end of Glasgow, because it knows the impact that would have on positive regeneration. It would bring in jobs and benefit to the wider economy. It knows that, and it has tried to attract organisations such as Police Scotland, which has come into the area. The area is starting to come up, because it is getting those extra, good-value jobs, and people are moving into the area to build their lives rather than just coming in and out for work. That is hugely important.

The Government would save money with collocation. As my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell) pointed out, it is much cheaper to have offices in Livingston than in the centre of Edinburgh and much cheaper to have jobs in Dalmarnock or Shawfield than in the city centre of Glasgow. The Government are wedded to the idea of shiny big offices in the city centre. If it is not important where the jobs are done, why should they be done in the most expensive office space that can be found? Why can they not be in local communities, giving benefit to the wider area? As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South said, that is part of the Government’s cack-handed approach to the issue.

The Government have not looked at the data. We have all asked written parliamentary questions, and they cannot show us the data that evidences the decisions. It is not there. They do not know how many claimants of particular types go and use the jobcentres in question. With the transition to universal credit, it is likely that those jobcentres might be needed more rather than less, because people will need to go in and out about the work-related aspects of universal credit, when they are asked to do more work or earn more. The Government do not seem to be thinking about that at all.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) said, we do not know any detail on outreach. I ask the Government to be careful about how it is done, because there is a huge stigma for some people in accessing jobcentre services. If they are going in and out of the building they can just about cope, but if the services start to be in the community centre, their pals might know they are going in. An officer might sanction someone right there in the middle of the canteen. Such things are really upsetting, and the Government need to think about how they are done, not only for the safety, data protection and dignity of the people using that service, but for the safety of staff. The number of attacks on jobcentre staff has gone up as people get increasingly upset and frustrated with the process. The Government have a duty to those staff to ensure that they are safe, wherever the service is.

There is a security guard on the front door of each jobcentre in Glasgow. If I walk in, someone will come up and challenge me and say, “Who are you? Why are you here?” Within seconds of me walking in the door in Bridgeton, they were saying that. There is a reason for that, and the Government need to think about the safety of staff when they proceed. They need to be careful to do it in a sensitive and effective way. I suppose the Government would know that if they had visited any of the jobcentres in Glasgow or the wider area. I imagine a Government entourage would roll into the building and the jobcentre staff would know they were coming, unlike when I just pitch up on the doorstep, but the Government should consider trying that. They should take up the offer of my hon. Friend the Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan) to visit the jobcentres in Inverclyde, or any jobcentre at all. They could understand the geography and see what it is like for clients to go from one place to another on two buses. Rather than just sitting in an office using Google Maps, they should do the journey themselves.

We have invited the Minister before to come on journeys with us around Glasgow. As part of its campaign, the Evening Times in Glasgow did case studies and went out on journeys to and from all the different jobcentres. It has done great campaigning work on the issue, and it knows the city well—certainly a good deal better than Ministers.

[Mr Sweeney]

There are a couple of relevant points about the need to have a security guard on the door, which reflects a number of problems with the current provision. There is the protection and morale of staff, but there is also the morale and self-esteem of the people who use the service. It is a measure of how the service conducts itself and how the interface with the service feels. People who already have anxiety issues, low self-esteem and problems with engaging are being introduced to this kind of Kafkaesque nightmare, where they feel intimidated and are effectively being negatively influenced to dissociate themselves from using the service.

[Alison Thewliss]

I agree that it seems to be part of a wider plan to stop people using the services in the first place and to get people away from going there and seeking support.

I cannot speak for the rest of the country, but I will speak for Glasgow. What is good about jobcentres in Glasgow is that Bridgeton, Parkhead and Easterhouse all have citizens advice bureaux round the corner, very close to people. If someone finds themselves sanctioned or is stressed or worried, or needs extra support, that support is literally around the corner. They can cross the road to get there, and that help and support will be there. I know from speaking to staff at citizens advice centres in Glasgow that that happens regularly; they are there to provide that service. At Shettleston, which will replace Bridgeton, Parkhead and Easterhouse, there is no citizens advice bureau across the road. I wonder why that is.

In Possil, as was mentioned, there are other services as well. In Langside, there is a college across the road, which is exactly where we would want something that can encourage people to up their qualifications and seek new opportunities.

There are opportunities for collocation that we know the Government have not even explored or looked at. I understand that they offered something to the Scottish Government with no options. Rather than engaging properly and thoroughly, they said, “This is what we are thinking of doing—and we are doing it.” As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West said, they did that rather than looking at the whole estate and what is the best type of service for people—what works and actually improves things. In all the discussion, there has been nothing about which jobcentres are effective and which are not. Where do things work well for people and where do they not, and how can we improve that? It is just all about cuts, not about people.

[Bill Grant]

I come back to my theme of modernisation. [Interruption.]

[Bill Grant]

I visited the Ayr jobcentre a couple of weeks ago, as I did the one in Cumnock. Cumnock is a deprived area and there are challenges there. On my modernisation theme, I recall a visit as far back as 2005 and 2006, when I retired from the fire service and went to the jobcentre in Ayr. It was a very uninviting, dark and intimidating place. The staff were behind screens for their protection. It was not very welcoming.

I say the word “modernisation” again, because when I went to the Ayr jobcentre just a couple of weeks ago, it was a very warm and welcoming place. The staff’s morale was high and they were enthused to tell me of the good work they were doing. Somebody will keep me right, but I thought the term was “job coaches” for those employed to encourage people into work. They were proud of the work that they had done through the modernisation of the premises. I found the staff’s morale high, though they are better judges of that. In some cases, modernisation works. I found it warm and welcoming there, whereas more than a decade ago it was a terrible place to visit.

[Alison Thewliss]

Modernisation is fine, but that is very different from shutting it, which is what is happening in this situation. These jobcentres are not being modernised—they are being removed and closed; they are gone. Modernisation is not what this debate is about.

I appreciate that time is tight and I have gone on for a wee while now. My hon. Friends the Members for Glasgow North and for Glasgow South and the hon. Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) powerfully raised the need for an equality impact assessment. The Government said that they would provide an equality impact assessment of each jobcentre after the event, not before deciding on the closures. We have not seen those as yet.

[Hugh Gaffney]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Nigel Evans (in the Chair)]

Order. Just before this intervention, I would give a gentle reminder that we are now under some time limits, in order to give equal time to the Labour Front-Bench spokesperson, and Members will also want to hear what the Minister has to say. Are you taking an intervention now?

[Alison Thewliss]

Yes; I am just about done.

[Hugh Gaffney]

Has the Minister watched “I, Daniel Blake”? Let us be modern and look at the world. Ken Loach made a very good film, so let us look at “I, Daniel Blake” and have a reality check on the whole DWP estate.

[Alison Thewliss]

The hon. Gentleman will find that Ministers will never say whether they have watched it. They probably ought to. I would be happy to put on a movie night if that would help.

We need to see the data and to know what happens next. We need to know what happens in the transition period and what the alternative services are, and whether there are going to be outreach services. What I really want more than anything else is for the people in our constituencies in Glasgow and right across the country, wherever they are, to have a no-sanction guarantee, at the very least for an interim period until the new arrangement settles in. If one person gets sanctioned because their bus does not turn up, that is an absolute scandal that falls on this Government. I will raise any constituency case I get of that kind with the Minister on the Floor of the House; he will know all about it.