Oral Answers to Questions
Jessica Morden Excerpts(6 years, 3 months ago)
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Alun Cairns
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for reminding us of that iconic “Gavin and Stacey” scene where Smithy is struggling to get into Wales because he has to pay the £6.70 toll charge to cross the bridge. I would point out to my hon. Friend that tolls have been reduced by 20% in the interim, and by the end of the year they will be abolished. That will be one of the biggest stimuluses for the Welsh economy in decades. It will provide the opportunity for more and better-paid jobs, and a £100 million boost to the Welsh economy. This is an opportunity for the south-west of England and south Wales to come together as an economic powerhouse to provide better opportunities in the western side of the UK.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
My constituents who work in Bristol and beyond have to put up with chronically overcrowded rail services as fares increase. Will the Secretary of State talk to UK Government Transport Ministers—rail services are not devolved—to sort this out?
Alun Cairns
The hon. Lady makes an important point about public transport in general. The Great Western franchise is out for consultation as we speak, and I encourage her, her constituents and south Wales Members to make representations about the improvements they would like. She talked about overcrowding, but one of the most overcrowded roads in the UK is around the Brynglas tunnels in Newport. I hope the Welsh Government get on with building that road sooner rather than later. After all, the UK Government made money available more than three years ago, and we are frustrated by the lack of response and reaction in building it.
Contaminated Blood Inquiry
Jessica Morden Excerpts(6 years, 3 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
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Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
Can the Minister reassure families such as the Smiths, who lost their son aged just seven and who have fought tirelessly for justice and answers for decades, that the Government truly mean it when they say that there will be no further delay and that the public inquiry will get it right this time? These families have been through so much and we just cannot let them down again.
Chloe Smith
The hon. Lady speaks for many of us in our roles as constituency MPs. We all feel for those families and we can all relate their experience to other tragedies that we know of in our constituencies. I would very much like the word to go out to the Smith family and others who might be listening that, yes, we mean every word of what we are saying here today and that we all wish to see this inquiry completed with no further delay, as effectively as possible, so that they can get the answers they deserve and perhaps be able to move on from there.
G20 Summit
Jessica Morden Excerpts(7 years, 8 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend refers to a number of organisations being based here. The International Maritime Organisation, a very important shipping organisation, is based here in London. I assure my hon. Friend that the Department for Exiting the European Union is looking across sectors of activity to ensure that the views of those sectors will be taken into account as we develop our proposals for the relationship with the EU.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
On behalf of steelworkers in my constituency, may I reiterate how disappointing it was to learn that the Prime Minister did not raise with the Chinese President specifically the overproduction of Chinese steel? May we have a commitment from the Prime Minister here today that her Government will do absolutely everything now and in the future proactively to raise these issues? We need the Prime Minister to do that to protect our steel industry.
The Prime Minister
I did raise the issue. I chose to raise it in the plenary session so it was clearly raised not just before the Chinese President but before the other leaders. Crucially, what has come out of the G20 is an agreement to set up a new forum, which will be looking at actions that lead to overcapacity and overproduction. The Chinese will be a member of that forum.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jessica Morden Excerpts(8 years, 2 months ago)
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Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
5. What plans he has to move policy-making civil servants out of London and into the regions.
The Minister without Portfolio (Robert Halfon)
Departments determine their workforce needs, and the civil service has a significant United Kingdom-wide presence. We are considering new Government hubs and strategic locations outside London as a way of further consolidating our office estates. I know from my own area that parts of Public Health England, for example, are moving from London to the east of England, which means £500 million of investment and thousands of jobs.
Jessica Morden
The Government have decided to close the office of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills in Sheffield and move it to London, and we have now learnt that the vast majority of policy makers for the northern powerhouse are based in London as well. We in Newport have benefited hugely from the location of civil service jobs in, for instance, the Intellectual Property Office and the Office for National Statistics. Given the Government’s recent woeful track record, will the Minister make it clear today that those jobs are valued, will be protected, and will remain in Newport?
Robert Halfon
The northern powerhouse is about devolution, not about jobs in London. The Government have a passion for Newport, and for Wales in general. Not only did the NATO summit encourage investment, but, as the hon. Lady knows, the Friars Walk regeneration project means more jobs and finance. When my right hon. Friend the Paymaster General visited the ONS office recently, he expressed huge admiration for the work of its staff, and committed himself to its long-term future. Only this week, it was announced that the ONS was recruiting 30 economic researchers to graduate posts. It is developing a skills base that will enable it to become a centre of expertise for data handling, and the hon. Lady should be celebrating that in her constituency.
NATO Summit
Jessica Morden Excerpts(9 years, 8 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend makes an important point. The EU has through its mechanisms decided and implemented sanctions, as has the US. There are a number of countries that have serious trading relationships with Russia, and which I believe ought to see the dangers to them of the approach that Russia is taking to the sovereign authority of another country. Yes, it is important that we have those conversations.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
May I echo the comments already made about Newport in this statement? Hosting the summit certainly put our city in the headlines; the community grasped the opportunity and we all hope that we benefit from things such as the investment conference coming up in November. Will the Prime Minister join me in thanking those public services that worked collaboratively, not least Gwent police force that worked with 42 other forces to deliver one of the largest security operations ever in the UK, with fantastic community policing?
The Prime Minister
I would like to say a particular thank you to the police. The Gwent force did a brilliant job, but police had to be called in from all over the country to deal with, I think, 54 Prime Ministers and Presidents, and the heads of a number of important international organisations. That is more Heads of Government or State than have ever come to a conference in Britain’s history. We were asking a lot of Newport, and Newport, the local police and all those involved responded magnificently.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jessica Morden Excerpts(9 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Maude
No good organisation gives up on pursuing efficiency savings year after year. The Office for National Statistics has shown that in the public sector productivity remained static during the Labour years while it rose by nearly 30% in the private services sector. If productivity had risen by the same amount in the public sector, the budget deficit that the coalition Government inherited could have been many, many tens of billions of pounds lower.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
I want the Minister to understand just how fearful and uncertain staff at the MOJ shared services centre in Newport feel after this week’s announcement of privatisation. How can he justify the hypocrisy of the Prime Minister talking about the UK becoming an onshoring nation when under this contract jobs could be offshored? What guarantees are the Government offering that these jobs could stay in Newport?
Mr Speaker
Order. Before the Minister answers, the hon. Lady must withdraw the use of the word “hypocrisy”, as it relates to an individual Minister.
Shared Services Connected Ltd
Jessica Morden Excerpts(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to open this debate with you in the Chair, Mr Owen.
I sought this debate on behalf of 239 Department for Work and Pensions staff at the Kings Court offices in the heart of my constituency, although the issue affects civil service staff more broadly.
I begin by citing the Prime Minister. Back in January, speaking at the World Economic Forum at Davos, he said that Britain had the potential to become the “reshore nation”. Talking about UK jobs lost abroad, through offshoring, he said,
“there is now an opportunity for the reverse…an opportunity for some of those jobs to come back.”
Should not the Government be taking a lead on this, setting the example through its own employment policies? Last week I received a letter from the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General all but confirming that the work lost in my constituency was to be offshored to India, as I understand it.
Let me explain the background. Shared services are those parts of individual civil service departments, arm’s length bodies and agencies that provide corporate services for IT, human resources management, pay and payroll, procurement and finance to deliver their business outputs. In December 2012, the Cabinet Office set out its next generation shared services strategic plan to create five shared service centres. Two independent shared services centres, ISSC1 and ISSC2, would be formed for a number of departments and arm’s length bodies. The three remaining were to be stand-alone centres, based on the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Defence and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.
The first of these independent shared service centres, ISSC1, based on the Department for Transport in Swansea, was outsourced to German multinational Arvato in June 2013. The Public and Commercial Services Union, representing the majority of staff, engaged positively in the transfer process to secure the best possible outcome. The consultation led to agreements, including one on no compulsory redundancy for at least a year and an agreement that staff would retain their civil service status.
ISSC2, which affects Sheffield, was to consist initially of the shared services functions of the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Environment Agency. This was turned into a joint venture company called Shared Services Connected Ltd, in which the Government retained 25% of the shares, with the French multinational Steria’s UK subsidiary owning and controlling 75%. The creation of SSCL involved civil service shared services sites in York, Alnwick, Cardiff, Blackpool and Newcastle, as well as the one in my constituency in Sheffield. SSCL became live in November 2013 and 1,000 civil servants were privatised and TUPE-ed over.
The PCS secured agreements with the Government on this process, including a six-month no compulsory redundancy agreement and a one-year guarantee of no site closures. However, on 4 March 2014, SSCL announced 500 job cuts, office closures and the offshoring of work, quite cynically timed to the minute the one-year guarantee against site closures ran out.
As well as the closure in Sheffield, by October 2014, the DWP office in Cardiff will close, with a loss of 105 staff, and the Environment Agency office in Leeds will close, with a loss of 68 staff.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
Can my hon. Friend understand the anxiety felt by staff at the Newport MOJ shared services centre—the situation is similar to the one in Sheffield that he is explaining—who understood that that was to be a stand-alone site, although it is now being considered for outsourcing to Arvato or Steria?
Paul Blomfield
I can indeed, and I will come to that issue. Closer to Newport than Sheffield, I met some staff from Cardiff last week. Like the staff in Sheffield, these are loyal civil servants who have contributed years of public service and, frankly, they feel betrayed by the decision and by the way that the decisions are being executed.
As well as job losses in Sheffield and Cardiff, 122 staff will go in SSCL offices in Blackpool, Newcastle, Peterborough and York. The DEFRA site in Alnwick has a temporary reprieve, but only until June 2015. The Government have not conducted economic impact assessments of the closure of these offices, although the loss of jobs will have a significant impact on local communities and economies. Indeed, in June 2013, Lynn Phillips, head of service improvement for DEFRA, wrote to the then Minister, the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath), highlighting the plan’s
“incompatibility with UK growth objectives”
because of the
“loss of jobs in regional locations”.
Will the Minister assure us and say that the Government will conduct an economic impact assessment and, if so, when that is likely to happen?
Paul Blomfield
My hon. Friend is right. I am coming to that point. Clearly, this issue has led to concerns being raised, even at Cabinet level. Yet, extraordinarily, the offshoring is being rushed through.
The speed at which SSCL intends to cut the 500 jobs is unprecedented. It aims to have all redundancies dealt with by the end of October. This does not allow enough time for staff to be re-employed or reinstated back into the civil service and means that compulsory redundancies are likely. Indeed, staff in Sheffield and in Cardiff, whom I met last week, told me that the redeployment opportunities have been limited, because there is no joined-up approach across Government. I find it extraordinary that most other Departments are not offering vacancies to those loyal civil servants who are losing their jobs. Do the Government think that this is the right way to treat any staff, particularly those who have given decades of public service? It sets a bad standard for employers throughout the country. I should like the Minister to reassure us on this issue. Will the Government commit to providing redeployment opportunities across all Departments? That would provide a lifeline for at least some staff. The limited opportunities that have been made available to date are inaccessible to many of those in Sheffield, and those at other sites, too.
SSCL is not acting in accordance with the special commitments given to staff before transfer, which stated that transformation would take place over two years and that everything would be done to avoid compulsory redundancies. The Government have a 25% stake in SSCL. At the very least, should they not use that position to challenge the speed of job cuts, to allow a thorough, ongoing programme of redeployment of staff? I should like the Minister to respond to that question.
There is also the issue of the data being handled. These sites handle the personal data of tens of thousands of civil servants. They also deal with commercially sensitive information relating to Government contracts and tendering. Despite the sensitivity of the data, when the Cabinet Office advertised for bidders to become majority partners in SSCL in April 2013, the selected bidders all had a significant element of offshoring functions as part of their bid.
Concerns about offshoring are not restricted to Opposition Members or their staff; they have, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Tyneside (Mrs Glindon) pointed out, been expressed at Cabinet level. The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs wrote to the Minister for the Cabinet Office last July, expressing concerns about DEFRA joining ISSC2 and a “possible staff exodus”. The Secretary of State asked specifically for a standstill period on “estates and off-shoring” and expressed concerns about data security. The head of service improvement for DEFRA wrote in her letter to the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome that the DEFRA executive committee considered
“significant (or any) element of off-shoring”
to be unacceptable and that there was a
“significantly increased risk to service continuity from loss of current expertise”
on transfer. She also raised concerns about
“employee and detailed financial data transmitted, stored and processed outside the UK”.
Why are the Government sanctioning the offshoring of sensitive personal data and commercially sensitive information, on which objections have been raised at the highest level of the civil service and by members of the Cabinet?
Jessica Morden
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is breathtaking hypocrisy for the Prime Minister to have been talking just weeks ago about Britain becoming the reshoring nation while the Cabinet Office pursues contracts that are explicitly relaxed about offshoring jobs, such as those at the shared services centre in Newport?
Paul Blomfield
My hon. Friend is absolutely right and again anticipates a point I will make. Before I do, I make one point about the remaining three shared service centres. Originally, they were to stand alone, but I understand that the strategic plan has been fundamentally revised. Peter Swann, who heads the Crown oversight function of the shared services agenda, has confirmed that the Ministry of Justice is considering transferring its shared services to one of the outsourced ISSCs instead.
I understand the concerns of the staff involved. If the MOJ was to join one of the already outsourced ISSC contracts, the sensitive data the staff handle, including criminal records and details of the police, the judiciary and security service personnel, could also be privatised and offshored. Why has the strategic plan been changed?
Finally, taking on board the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden), I return to my opening point. What makes the cuts so much harder for the staff to swallow is that so much of the work for the three sites under threat of closure has been earmarked for offshoring. Indeed, the PCS told me that SSCL has explicitly said that a determining factor in deciding which sites are to close is the potential for the work to be offshored. Offshoring is the driver for decisions on closure and job losses.
As my hon. Friend said, how does that fit in with the Prime Minister’s assertion at the World Economic Forum that he wants the UK to become “the reshoring nation”? At Davos, he underlined that ambition by announcing the establishment of a new body, Reshore UK, which will sit within the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. The Prime Minister clearly places great weight on that body in developing his reshoring strategy. Will the Minister commit to arranging for Reshore UK to meet with SSCL and the Cabinet Office with the aim of considering how the jobs they plan to offshore can stay in the UK? If not, does he accept that the Prime Minister’s statement at Davos will be seen as nothing more than empty words?
Oral Answers to Questions
Jessica Morden Excerpts(10 years, 2 months ago)
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Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
4. What discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Justice on the Ministry of Justice’s shared services centre in Newport.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Stephen Crabb)
The Wales Office is in close contact with the Ministry of Justice, which is still at an early stage in evaluating options for the shared services centre in Newport. The Government are committed to ensuring that services are delivered efficiently, while providing value for money for taxpayers.
Jessica Morden
In December, hundreds of workers at the MOJ’s shared services centre in Newport learned that their jobs could be privatised, and obviously the work force has great concern that jobs could be outsourced or offshored, as we have seen with the Government’s model. Given the bad news that Newport received last week with the potential loss of jobs at Avana Bakeries, will the Minister speak up for public sector workers in Newport and tell the MOJ to abandon its plans?
Stephen Crabb
I thank the hon. Lady for her question. On the point about Avana Bakeries, she should be aware that I spoke to that company on Friday afternoon; the scenario is obviously very difficult for the city of Newport.
On the shared services centre, the evaluation of options is, as I said in my initial answer, at an early stage, but the Government will work with staff, trade unions and other stakeholders to assess any impact on staff. We are very mindful of the jobs impact on the hon. Lady’s constituency.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jessica Morden Excerpts(10 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Hurd
Yes, the Government agree with that. That is why we put the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 on the statute book. Later this month, we will publish a one-year-on review of that Act, because it matters to us. We are keen for commissioners—the people who spend public money—to think intelligently about how money can be stretched as far as possible.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
5. What assessment he has made of the efficacy of privatised shared services across central Government Departments.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
The Government’s first priority is to drive down costs for the taxpayer and cut the massive budget deficit that we inherited. There has been cross-party agreement on the need for shared services for the past decade, but very little had been achieved until over the past 12 months. That is why I am pleased that last year we launched a joint venture with Steria that will save taxpayers at least £400 million and create a new, dynamic UK business services company.
Jessica Morden
The announcement in December that the Ministry of Justice’s shared service centre in Newport could be privatised has caused huge fears and uncertainty among the work force, who fear that their jobs will be outsourced and potentially offshored, which could happen under this model. Given the Prime Minister’s commitment to onshoring jobs last week, will the Cabinet Office reassure the workers in Newport that the plans will be shelved?
Mr Maude
We will certainly not shelve any options that could bring improved services and cut the cost to the taxpayer. I am aware of the uncertainty. That will be resolved as soon as possible so that people know where the future lies. To give a bit of reassurance, I remind the hon. Lady that the first shared service centre in Swansea, which has been fully outsourced rather than being a joint venture, is taking on more staff.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jessica Morden Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
13. A report by the CAB last week showed that over the past three years energy bills have increased eight times more than earnings. Does the Secretary of State not share the concern that Wales has the highest energy bills of anywhere in the UK? If he does, why does he not tackle that far more urgently?
Stephen Crabb
Wales has some of the highest energy prices, but regional variations are partly due to higher transmission costs—an important component of an energy bill. That brings us back to the earlier question about wanting more expensive transmission projects in Wales, not cheaper ones. We are very aware of the pressure on households in Wales because of the energy prices increase, and we are not complacent about that.