Jobcentre Closures

Hugh Gaffney Excerpts

Monday 5th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[David Linden]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend, who refers to the number of written questions that I have tabled. I am rivalled only by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) in my love for written questions.

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point about the fact that Ministers from the Department for Work and Pensions have not bothered to visit the city of Glasgow. In fact, one of the other written questions that I asked of the UK Government was, when was the last time that a Minister visited the city of Glasgow. I was rather shocked when in response to one of those written questions I was informed that a Minister had indeed visited a jobcentre—in Midlothian. I do not know what the geographical knowledge of Her Majesty’s Government is like, but can I impart a bit of wisdom to them? Midlothian is not exactly Easterhouse. It is not Castlemilk; it is not even Moray. If the Minister is serious about being someone who is focused on the entire United Kingdom, then he ought to come to visit the city.

[Hugh Gaffney (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)]

If the Minister does come to Glasgow, I would like to invite him to walk from one jobcentre that is closed to the next and see what these people are facing. It will take him over an hour. It takes half an hour on the bus, on average, to get to the jobcentres that are closing down. He will be more than welcome to come to Glasgow and do the walk.

[David Linden]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Even as an Albion Rovers fan, he is very quick off the mark, because he has worked out my very next point, which is on transport. He shares a constituency boundary with me. One part of that boundary is around Gartloch and Gartcosh. I do not know whether the Minister would be able to point to where Gartloch is on a map, but the reality is that, if someone has to walk from Gartloch to Shettleston on a cold January or February day, it is going to take them a rather long time.

The third issue that I want to touch on is the gangland culture and territorialism that exists in Glasgow. I am glad to say that, since the time I was growing up—nothing to do with me, I must add—a lot of that has been tackled, and we do not have quite the same problems that we did. I give the Minister the example the community of Wellhouse, which is separated from Easthall by a road. They are two communities in the Greater Easterhouse Partnership area. They are very, very small communities but they have their own community centre and housing association. That is because at one point young guys could not walk across that road without the fear of getting involved in all sorts of incidents.

If the Minister will not listen to me on the concerns about territorialism and the gangland culture, then he should listen to Commander Stevie Haslett, who heads up Glasgow East police. I was quite surprised to find out that the Department had not bothered to consult him about this either. The Minister will be aware, of course, because I am sure that he has done his homework, that Shettleston jobcentre was piloted as being one of the under-25 jobcentres that everybody in the whole of the east end of Glasgow would come to. This was a number of years ago. There was all sorts of trouble because people from different communities were coming together and clashing. That put the security staff and the jobcentre staff at immense risk as well.

My final point is about the jobcentre that the Government want to merge absolutely everything into—Shettleston, which would be some sort of UK super-jobcentre following the merger of Bridgeton, Easterhouse and Parkhead. I was quite surprised when I found out only a couple of weeks ago about the number of car parking spaces at Shettleston jobcentre. This is particularly about the issue of all the new staff who will be transitioned to that jobcentre. I say to the Minister that, if I find out in the next couple of weeks that Shettleston Road has been turned into a car park, I am going to be very unhappy.

The Evening Times, a local newspaper in Glasgow, has been resolutely united in campaigning to save our jobcentres. If the Minister will not listen to me as an SNP politician, and if he will not even listen to the Tory councillors in Glasgow, he should listen to the newspaper that is for Glasgow.

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[Alison Thewliss]

Absolutely. We are fighting the fight in Glasgow about bus fare rises in the city as well, which is making it more challenging for people to get about.

While spending time outside the front of the Bridgeton jobcentre, I spoke to a woman who was on her way in. She was in bits. She was crying and upset. She had come from her house, which was just along the street, and she was in fear of what she would find when she went into the jobcentre, because they were hassling her and sending her letters. She had already been through a lot. She had lost her daughter. She is a WASPI woman, so she should not even have had to look for work in the first place, but this Government are sending this poor woman who had worked her whole life out to work. She was in bits, so we comforted her as best we could. She went through that experience and was understandably even more upset by the time she left. It would have been very hard for her not only to leave the house and go to the jobcentre that was just around the corner, but to get herself up, get on the bus and find her way all the way up to Shettleston and then make the journey back again. That is a challenging journey.

It is also a challenging journey for people who have caring responsibilities, for people who have kids to drop off at nursery and pick up from nursery, or drop off at school and pick up from school, and for people who are tending to elderly relatives who are poorly, which is a very common occurrence for my constituents. The burden of that falls upon women, which has not been picked up in the Government’s lack of an equality impact assessment.

All those things mount up on the pressures of life that my constituents are feeling every single day. This Government are not trying to get them into work. This Government are making it harder for them to even get out of the house in the morning. They are making it really challenging for people to cope. I am fearful that people will just fall out of the system; they will think it is too hard, fall back on their friends and fall into debt, drink, drugs, gambling and all the other social ills that we need to see removed from our people in Glasgow, so that they can progress in their lives. This Government are making it harder for them to cope.

The impact on jobcentre staff has not been mentioned. One of the first things I heard as a candidate in Glasgow was a story from a trade union rep about a jobcentre employee who had been attacked by someone with a clawhammer. That is awful. No one should face that at work, and I condemn the situation that led someone to do that, but that is the situation, and those staff need to be protected. When I walked into that jobcentre, the first person who came to see me was the security guard and the second person was the manager, saying “What are you doing here?” There is a security guard on that door for a very good reason, which sadly is to protect the staff.

The Government are talking about outreach, flexible working and going out into communities, but they have not said what the impact will be on staff, how staff will be protected out and about in the community and how individual constituents who are also in very distressing situations will be protected, with their dignity intact, if they are told they are being sanctioned in the corner of the local community centre. How do we ensure that staff and our constituents are protected in those situations?

[Hugh Gaffney]

One of the elements we have forgotten about is the staff. In Coatbridge, 300 jobs were moved. It was speeded up and the jobs were moved more quickly. We intervened and asked why those people were being moved out. Jobcentre staff have a 1% pay rise. For some of these staff, it will cost up to £1,800 extra a year in travel costs, so they are being asked to take a pay cut to follow their job. I hope the Minister keeps that in mind.

[Alison Thewliss]

The hon. Gentleman is definitely right. He has previously spoken very movingly about the effect on local economies of having jobcentres as anchor tenants in such areas—in shopping centres and on high streets in local communities—and this is about the impact on the local shops, such as the butchers’ and everything else. There is an impact that the Government are obviously not taking into account.

I want to finish with a plea to the Minister. I know that it will be difficult for my constituents to make that journey. It will be hard for them to get there, find their way and do so on time. Buses are not very regular, and we cannot rely on them turning up precisely when we need them. On Google Maps, the timetable may say x—if people turn up at exactly that time, they can get here and there—but we know that that is just not how it works.

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[Mr Sweeney]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that point—I absolutely agree. Plenty of people come to my constituency office with their concerns, but the thing that worries me, as a new Member of Parliament, is the people who do not turn up. What about the people who are not aware of the opportunity they have because of the service provided by a Member of Parliament, never mind a jobcentre? What keeps me awake at night is thinking about the people sitting in a flat somewhere in Possilpark, Milton or Springburn who are sick to the back teeth and worried out of their wits about what they are going to do—how they are going to heat their house or how they are going to feed their family. They are not necessarily made aware of the opportunity that an MP can provide them with.

[Hugh Gaffney]

On the point about geography, travel and all the rest, jobcentres have closed and there has been a high number of sanctions, but there has been no leeway and no reprieve, and nobody has looked at these cases again. As we heard earlier, people are learning how to dodge the gangland and how to get to the jobcentre—how to walk there and what the shortcuts are. They can walk over an hour to get there; they are getting sanctioned, but they are still learning the new geography.

[Mr Sweeney]

I thank my hon. Friend for that important contribution, which leads back to the point I was making about the geographical issues that people face, particularly in the north and east of Glasgow. There are structural issues. The hon. Member for Glasgow East made the point that gangland issues are a deterrent for people who want to move around. There are structural issues with public transport, and there is also the general fragmentation of the built environment in that part of the city. None of that has been taken into consideration in the assessment process, and I urge the Minister to apply a reasonable approach to that issue when considering the mitigation of these jobcentre closures.

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[Alok Sharma]

I think I have made the point about co-location. We are having an estate that is fit for the 21st century. Where a new jobcentre was over 3 miles and 20 minutes away by public transport, online public consultation was held, as hon. Members will know, and we operated on evidence, and we listened and took action as a result. For example, we are introducing a new employability suite at Atlantic Quay and, as hon. Members know, we decided to retain the jobcentre in Castlemilk because of the feedback we received. I hope that hon. Members will therefore feel that we have listened on that point.

As we deliver these changes, this local approach is continuing with stakeholders and through partnership events, and we are working with claimants to find the best solutions for them. So far, we have moved out of 70 sites across the country with success, and these moves are being well received both by claimants and staff, as well as our partners. There was a discussion about how staff and claimants were reacting to the move. The feedback from claimants on the move from Maryhill to Springburn is that the move has been extremely positive, and they welcome access to more facilities. One claimant said:

“I never expected it to be as good as this”.

Furthermore, 23 claimants have transferred to Partick because it is easier for their own journey.

I agree it is vital that staff are looked after, but staff have told us that they are happier being part of a bigger team and office, that it allows them to provide an evolving and improved service based on customer needs, that the teams have come together seamlessly and that the team culture, which is incredibly important in any organisation, is developing to maximise benefits to claimants. The idea that this is having a detrimental effect on claimants and staff does not hold true.

[Hugh Gaffney]

I think that this is sarcasm; we call it Glasgow banter. The Minister says the staff are happy, but that is not the feedback that we are getting. I am also concerned about disabled people who have had to travel for an extra half hour to the locations that the Minister is talking about. It costs £4.50 to use the local bus service, and many of those same people are going to food banks.

[Alok Sharma]

I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman feels that there is sarcasm in what I am saying. That is certainly not my intent, and I do not think it is the intent of the DWP staff who have sent us feedback. I can give the hon. Gentleman a list of the things that staff and claimants have said about the moves involving Broxburn and Anniesland. Perhaps things are not quite as some Members feel that they are.