DWP Offices (Fylde)

Ben Wallace Excerpts

Wednesday 27th November 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mike Penning]

As soon as I said it, I knew I had said the wrong one. It is the Norcross site; Warbreck is a completely different kettle of fish and we are using it to its fullest capacity.

Coming back to Norcross, which is what I was supposed to have been talking about, demolition has started and it would be expensive for us to row back from that. It would have cost in excess of £30 million to do it up to a standard that would have given us any longevity. It would have cost us £100,000, should we have had a problem.

The costs are immaterial—we are where we are. There would have been legal costs and a new negotiation, because we are not the freeholders but the tenants. An income to the Department is built into the redevelopment, although we do not yet know what the exact amount will be, because we do not know how the market will perform. There is an exciting future for the Norcross site and things will move forward. [Interruption.] This is where the note comes through saying, “Minister, you might have said the wrong thing.” The cost of redevelopment would have been £20 million, not £30 million as I said, so I apologise and put that on record.

The important point made by my hon. Friend was that we must work much harder on the concept that someone sitting in Sheffield, London or Timbuktu can look at Google Maps and think, “That’s a great idea. We’ll do it that way.” Anyone who knows my previous roles—I know that my hon. Friend was on the Select Committee on Transport—will know that when I made the decision on the future of the coastguards, I specifically did not do things in that way. I looked at the needs, where it could be done and the economic effects on that part of the community. I assure him that that is exactly what I will do as we move forward.

The debate on this topic back in 2006 or 2007, secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre and Preston North (Mr Wallace),was the right debate. He managed to secure a commitment from the Minister to visit. Ministers get huge demands on their time for visits around the country, but it is important that they are seen not to be London-centric—that they actually go out and understand what is going on in the community and see the effects of decisions.

I also want to praise the civil servants in the Department for Work and Pensions. The welfare reforms have been a massive transformation. There has been a lot of uncertainty, which I fully understand, as we have moved from the disability living allowance to personal independence payments, but the civil servants have done a brilliant job and the enthusiasm I have found in offices around the United Kingdom has been overwhelming. They have asked for a chance to get on with it, because they now know where they are and how to move forward.

[Mr Ben Wallace (Wyre and Preston North) (Con)]

I have two things to say on that point of reform. I want to put in a bid for the Fylde to be seriously considered as a location for a universal credit hub as it is rolled out across the country. As the Minister rightly said, we have excellent civil servants, who could operate it brilliantly. It is therefore even more important that we do not have just a civil servant, but a senior-grade civil servant like a camp commandant, who can provide answers. Much of the work force feel disjointed from the management in Sheffield and London, because they cannot get the answers locally as the senior grades that they should have are not there.