Oral Answers to Questions

Hannah Bardell Excerpts

Wednesday 15th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Small businesses and entrepreneurs are essential to an economy that is working for everyone. The opportunity that comes from Brexit is to see those firms go out and export across the world, and to do those trade deals that will be of benefit to them, to their communities and to our economy. We want to encourage more businesses to go out there and export. That is exactly what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Trade is doing. This is an important part of building a stronger, fairer Britain for the future.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

Q14. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs employs more than 1,000 vital staff in my Livingston constituency. Despite widespread criticism from the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee, and despite Livingston having the most engaged and productive staff, the Prime Minister’s Government are determined to move jobs from Livingston to Edinburgh. Staff do not want to move there and rental costs will be higher. To compound that, last week Ethicon announced that 400 jobs are set to go at its Livingston site. Will the Prime Minister therefore change her mind on HMRC jobs in Livingston, and meet me to ensure that public sector jobs that are vital to Livingston stay in Livingston?

[The Prime Minister]

HMRC is indeed relocating from 170 outdated offices to 13 large, modern regional centres. The new centres will be equipped with the digital infrastructure and facilities that are needed to build a more highly skilled and flexible workforce, to enable the modernisation of ways of working, make tax collection more efficient and effective, and bring significant improvements to HMRC’s customer services.