HMRC Estate Transformation

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 29th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

I thank my hon. Friend for shamelessly promoting, quite rightly, the properties in his constituency. I would be very happy to meet him to discuss the area.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Mr Speaker,

“‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty’—that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”

The Minister keeps referring to bringing together hubs, but the danger is that that will mean everything moving to big cities, and all the smaller towns in a constituency, such as all those towns in the valleys in south Wales, losing out. There are loyal HMRC workers, and cheaper properties, in many of these towns. Will he not look at those smaller towns?

[Mel Stride]

The hon. Gentleman is suggesting that we set all current arrangements in aspic. Going back some decades, there would have been not 170 offices across the country, but several hundred. No doubt if we went back in time, the hon. Gentleman would have been on his feet telling us that we should keep 700 offices, rather than shrinking the number down to 170. The reality is that the way that the tax authority conducts its affairs is effective—I have given the figures—and there is a model that makes that happen. That lends itself to 21st-century hubs that have the right resourcing to do the job.