HMRC Office Closures

Debate between Chris Stephens and Rob Marris

Tuesday 24th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Stephens]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that HMRC will have to publish an impact assessment in respect of the social and economic changes and staff with a disability or caring responsibilities?

[Rob Marris]

I do agree, but I will say more on that in a couple of minutes. Views vary on whether the closure programme is wise. Last week, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury and I again met Stephen Herring from the Institute of Directors, who broadly—this is paraphrasing his position—welcomes this kind of move because he thinks that technology has transformed, and should further transform, how HMRC operates, and that it should be driven by business efficiencies and so on. The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants is broadly in favour of this sort of change, too. Its head of taxation said it was

“reasonable to restructure the offices and we support there being higher skills”.

Correspondingly, the Public and Commercial Services Union, which does a great job representing its members in HMRC and across Government, has grave misgivings —to say the least—about the programme, as does the Association of Revenue and Customs, which is part of the FDA union and represents senior people in HMRC.