Citizens Advice Bureaux (Birmingham) Debate

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Citizens Advice Bureaux (Birmingham)

Jim Sheridan Excerpts
Wednesday 9th February 2011

(13 years, 10 months ago)

Westminster Hall
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John Hemming Portrait John Hemming
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It helps to put the history on record. Yes, the decision was taken in November that money needed to be saved in this area, but the objective was to maintain services, and, therefore, interim funding was made available. The CAB took the view that it was all or nothing; it wanted to continue interim funding at the same rate at which the funding was being withdrawn. To be fair, since then I have met with the chief executive of Citizens Advice, and although the meeting started with the position that it needed to maintain interim funding at the same rate, it has now agreed to look for savings, but that is far too late. I have a meeting with Councillor Ayoub Khan about the matter on Friday, and let us hope that the CAB, rather than issuing threats of legal action, is willing to co-operate to maintain services. I ask the CAB to co-operate to maintain—

Jim Sheridan Portrait Jim Sheridan (in the Chair)
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Order. An intervention should be short.

John Hemming Portrait John Hemming
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I ask that the Minister co-operates because there are other funding streams, which are also crucial.