HMRC Office Closures

Neil Gray Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

Let me just make this point and then I will take plenty of interventions.

That will allow HMRC better to concentrate on its core task of revenue collection. Yes, there are savings for HMRC in reducing its estate costs, but it has made it very clear to me that regardless of what the spending review settlement will be tomorrow, it would move in this direction because it believes that the best way in which it can deliver services and collect tax is through regional centres. That is the important point.

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

I pay tribute to the staff of HMRC, who do a very tough and challenging job in collecting the taxes that pay for our vital public services. The Minister has mentioned his recent concerns about customer service, and I have had constituency correspondence from HMRC confirming that that has not been adequate to date. Can he explain, in specific terms, how cutting office numbers, thereby removing the local knowledge and memory of staff, increases the quality of customer service that people can expect?

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for giving me an opportunity to contribute to the debate. The time constraint just goes to show how important the motion is. I hope that in future there will be time for us to debate this important issue seriously.

More than 800 staff are employed at HMRC’s two facilities in my constituency, Sidlaw House and Caledonian House. When I met some of the staff last Friday, they confided in me their fears about the recent announcement of significant job losses, which is just the latest in a series of devastating attacks on public service jobs that Dundee has endured at the hands of successive Westminster Governments. That is completely at odds with what is happening in Dundee just now. The city is undergoing a £1 billion regeneration project—one of the most extensive in these islands—and employment is on the up, bucking the national trend. At the stroke of a pen, however, this Westminster Government have single-handedly put at risk the progress the city has recently been making to create and protect jobs. This has been done without public consultation or ministerial sign-off.

Unlike Scottish Government civil servants, HMRC staff will not be covered by a ministerial commitment to no compulsory redundancies. At Caledonian House, for example, we understand that 130 jobs are to be stripped from the city. I am told that the work carried out there predominantly relates to corporation tax and compliance. Ten years ago, there were more than 200 HMRC staff there. The office now occupies half the space, and it looks as though it could be boarded up by 2018.

Skilled employees, some of whom have 30 years’ experience and have provided decades of loyal service, have been abandoned by an organisation to which they have dedicated their whole career. The office currently has only two members of staff at grade 6 or 7. I disagree with the Minister’s statement that training would continue. There used to be 10 staff at those grades as well as four trainees, of whom there are now only two.

Staff at Caledonian House are being told that the best outcome they can hope for is a possible transfer to the new Edinburgh or Glasgow centres. If—I repeat, if—HMRC chooses to re-employ those staff, which I am told is by no means automatic, the impact on them and their families will be dramatic. Most HMRC employees in Dundee will be well outwith an hour’s commute of the new regional offices in Edinburgh and Glasgow, which is what HMRC defines as “reasonable daily travel”. So by HMRC’s own definition, it will be asking staff to do something that it does not consider to be reasonable.

Caledonian House is set to be shut down and boarded up by 2018, as I have said, yet we are being told that the new regional centres in Edinburgh and Glasgow will not open until 2020-21 at the earliest. That raises another question. What plans, if any, does HMRC have for the 130 staff at Caledonian House? In a letter that I recently received from HMRC’s chief executive Lin Homer, she stated:

“As Caledonian House is some distance away from the new regional centre, our employees will not automatically move to the regional centre once this office closes.”

So there we have it, in black and white: HMRC can offer no guarantees of job safety to existing employees at Caledonian House. They will be forced to apply for a job at the new regional centres. If that is not a betrayal of a loyal and dedicated workforce, I do not know what is. At Caledonian House alone, there are 10 couples working under the same roof, so there will be an impact not just on sole employees but on couples. This will have a devastating effect on the lives of those families.

The rationale for closing Caledonian House early is shrouded in mystery. HMRC has stated:

“The closure date for Caledonian House reflects the timing of when we will restructure the work that is currently located there.”

However, two senior officials who visited Caledonian House on Tuesday 17 November could not tell staff how those restructuring plans would play out. What are we to take from this? One local union representative told me:

“Mixed messages or misinformation are the only assumptions that can be made.”

[Neil Gray]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that last year in the independence referendum the Better Together parties were quick to point out that the only way of securing HMRC tax jobs in Scotland was to vote no? Was that a betrayal?

[Chris Law]

In a word, yes.

It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that HMRC is making this up as it goes along. There are 650 people working at Sidlaw House who have been offered nothing more than empty promises about a potential move to the Department for Work and Pensions to work on universal credit. We know that the DWP is undertaking its own potentially far-reaching estate review in the face of what are likely to be swingeing cuts in tomorrow’s autumn statement, which could very well see it, too, pulling out of the city altogether. The employees at Sidlaw House deserve better. They deserve to know the truth.

Dundee cannot afford to lose these highly skilled jobs. The plans as they stand represent an absolute hammer blow for the city, with at least 130 skilled jobs being cut by a Tory Government with no mandate in Scotland. As I have said, there is also no clarity about the 650 jobs at Sidlaw House, or whether they will be transferred to the DWP. Families across the city will be devastated by this news and worried about the future. I cannot stress my opposition to this strongly enough.