HMRC Staff: Dudley

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 7th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

I am grateful to have the opportunity to raise in the House the threat to 250 jobs of hard-working and highly skilled civil servants employed by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs at the Waterfront offices in Dudley. I am also grateful for the brilliant work done by the local representative of the Public and Commercial Services Union, Tim Crumpton, and to constituents of mine who work at the centre for speaking to me about this matter. I congratulate them on their campaign to save the jobs and to keep the staff working in our community.

These are jobs that neither the staff themselves nor the wider community in Dudley can afford to lose, and that is why I am asking Ministers to look again at this decision. We want them to keep the Brierley Hill offices open and ensure that the highly skilled HMRC staff continue to work for the Government, serving the public. As Members will know, HMRC announced a radical office closure programme in November 2015, reducing the number of offices to just 13, spread across the UK.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. He mentions the highly skilled employees. With the introduction of universal credit and the additional work of reviewing every former disability living allowance and current personal independence payment claim, does he agree that to dismiss highly trained staff, who are capable of working between Departments and easing the load, is folly and must be reconsidered?

[Ian Austin]

I completely agree. It is not party political knockabout to say that the introduction of universal credit is clearly not going according to plan. It has obviously hit some wrinkles along the road—that is a charitable way of putting it—and it is an odd decision to get rid of staff when we do not know how difficult it is going to be to properly introduce the new benefit.

The new regional centre for the west midlands will be in Birmingham. That led to the closure of the Walsall office in 2016, while the Worcester office is due to close next year and the Wolverhampton, Coventry and Solihull offices are due to close in 2020 or 2021.