BIS Sheffield/Government Departments outside London
Debate between Kevin Barron and Anna Soubry
The Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise (Anna Soubry)
I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) on securing this debate through the Backbench Business Committee. It has been a very good debate. A number of hon. Members from both sides of the House have raised a number of very good points. I know that the clock is against me—that is the rule of Parliament. The last time I said that people seemed to think it was my choice. It certainly was not. I will of course write with an answer to all those hon. Members whose questions I do not answer in my response. That may include the hon. Gentleman, in this respect: his questions were quite long, and I do not have time to answer them all at length. I will deal with the points he made, but in the time allowed to me I will not be able to answer them all in the sort of length that I would like.
It is very important that we have as the focus of this debate the 247 people who currently work in the Sheffield office. I make the point that, yes, we have put forward the proposal, but a final decision has not been made. It has been out for consultation, and I very much hope that a number of hon. Members took part in that consultation. A final decision will not be made until 23 May. Everyone on both sides of this House will know that Governments of whatever colour have at times to make very difficult decisions, but we have to be sure that we make the right decisions for the right reasons.
I also make this point, which is very important. Whatever the decision on Sheffield, 83% of the people who work for BIS will continue to work outside London. To some extent, I take a little exception to the suggestion that we in BIS are not in touch with what is going on in the rest of the country outside London. The Secretary of State and I do not represent London seats; as hon. Members might imagine, we return to our constituencies. Most importantly, we still have an exceptionally fine team of local BIS civil servants working throughout the whole country, who feed in—indeed, I have at least a monthly meeting with them—when they give me a round-up of everything that has happened across the country.
By way of example, the Green Investment Bank is proudly based in Edinburgh. UK Trade & Investment exists throughout the whole country. Today, I have been on a visit in Leicestershire, where I opened the marvellous new extension of an excellent business. Not only did I then meet the Leicester Asian Business Association, but, as I often do, I met the local enterprise partnership. I say to the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) that when I come to Sheffield on 23 May, it will be a pleasure to meet him and have him there at my visit to those steel mills. I will also meet the LEP, because getting that feedback is so essential.
I turn now to the reasons behind the proposal. It is really important to set this in the right context. That context is a mixture, of course, of the financial position that we are in and the decisions that we have rightly made to make sure that we have a budget that we can cope with and that BIS plays its part in reducing overall spend. But it is not just about cutting money. It is about making sure that this Department works as efficiently and effectively as possible. The situation that the Secretary of State and I inherited was the frankly historical problem of an abundance of sites. A decision has been taken, against that financial background—I hope that this answers the questions of the right hon. Members for Rother Valley (Kevin Barron) and for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg)—
Anna Soubry
It is not as simple as cutting costs. The right hon. Gentleman, with his great experience in and out of government, should know that. It is a question of making sure that we have an efficient and effective way of working in BIS, set against the financial restraints that we have quite properly put upon our Department as part of our overall requirements with regard to the deficit.
Our current HQ office locations are based on the legacy I mentioned, and have resulted in a complicated map of management relationships, with work in policy teams spread across 14 different locations. We are committed to reducing our headcount by 2020. That will involve becoming more flexible and redeploying fewer staff quickly to new priorities. We need simple structures that allow staff to interact through quicker, less cumbersome means and stay close to each other in flexible teams. We rightly put a strong emphasis on staff engagement, excellent management, visible leadership and developing and coaching our staff. Those are harder to achieve if teams are not collected together or are not working under the same roof. We believe that having a single-site BIS policy headquarters is the best way to preserve our effectiveness. Given that our teams serve Ministers in Parliament, those headquarters have to be in London.
I want to make this point absolutely clear. Whatever the decision, we will continue to provide good and full support to the 247 members of staff who have had this proposal hanging over them—we are very conscious of that—since 28 January. If the decision is made to close the Sheffield office, that support will continue, because this Department takes its duty of care to each and every one of our staff extremely seriously, as I hope hon. Members would imagine.
I have said that tough decisions have to be made. The hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Roger Mullin) and his colleagues on the Scottish National party Benches will understand that, for Governments of all colours, there are times, set against a difficult financial background, when tough decisions have to be taken. I make no criticism of the SNP’s decision back in 2013 to close 10 sheriff courts and seven justice of the peace courts, with operations transferred to other locations. Those are the difficult decisions that have to be made. Of course, the SNP closures were justified as cost-saving measures, but, to be fair, as part of a wider reform of the justice system as well. We can all take away from that the fact that the SNP was not just cutting things for the sake of savings, but was doing so as part of a broader strategy.
Hatfield Colliery
Debate between Kevin Barron and Anna Soubry
Anna Soubry
No, hang on, hang on. I have given way. [Interruption.] Hang on. This is a debate. I need to finish my sentence, and I am running out of time.
There was no possibility of a contract. The right hon. Member for Doncaster will accept that the directors and others—all involved in the future of the pit—were doing everything they could to secure a contract, but the one thing that nobody has been able to do is to secure a contract. There is no debate about that.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Kevin Barron and Anna Soubry(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Anna Soubry
If only it were as simple as that. Emerging evidence that I have seen suggests that it is the attractiveness of the packets that leads young people to decide to take up smoking. It also suggests—it is important for us to bear this in mind—that standardised packaging is not intended to persuade those who choose to smoke to continue to do so, and will make no difference to their choices. The aim is to protect children and young people.
Mr Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)
22. It is a well-known fact that for many decades cigarette packaging has been there to attract the eyes of not just current smokers, but those who are yet to become smokers. Given that 50% of people who smoke die prematurely, it is clear that, over those many decades, the tobacco industry’s intention has been to attract new smokers, including young children. The sooner we get on with standardising packaging, the better.
Anna Soubry
As I have said, I am precluded from giving any personal opinion, but I am sure that we will all take on board what the right hon. Gentleman has said.