Citizens Advice Bureaux (Birmingham)

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Wednesday 9th February 2011 Westminster Hall

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Sheridan, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.

This is a debate of immense importance for the people of Birmingham. The Birmingham citizens advice bureau is the oldest and largest in the country, dating back to 1939. Progressively, the Birmingham CAB opened five offices in Birmingham to meet great and growing demand. Last year, the Birmingham CAB provided advice and support to 56,000 people. For those who find it hard to access mainstream services, it also provides a comprehensive web of outreach services in, for example, GP practices, children’s centres, hospitals, dementia advice projects and Macmillan Cancer Support.

The Birmingham CAB employs 100 full-time staff, who work with a dedicated army of 166 volunteers, including the excellent Paul Ballantyne who is here today and who is the chair of the trustees, and the excellent John Orchard, a volunteer for the CAB. Both have both devoted many years’ work to the CAB in support of the most vulnerable people in Birmingham. And vulnerable they certainly are; in Kingstanding, in my constituency, we have a CAB in one of the poorest and most deprived wards in Britain—much cherished by the people who live in the ward.

Birmingham has been hard hit. The west midlands has the highest unemployment anywhere in Britain. Just when the people of Birmingham need somewhere to go for support and advice, the generalist advice services of all five citizens advice bureaux will close. Why? On the one hand, it is a combination of the callous cuts being made by the Government to local government services in Birmingham, where £170 million will come out of the budget next year alone; and on the other hand, the cruel incompetence of the council.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

I do not know if my hon. Friend saw the Prime Minister’s very helpful comment in The Sunday Telegraph, when he said that councils should look to reduce their chief executives’ salaries before they cut citizens advice bureaux. Given that the chief executive of Birmingham is one of the highest-paid in the country, should he and some of his senior officers not take a cut before the CAB?

[Jack Dromey]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. The last thing that should be cut is advice to the people of Britain from citizens advice bureaux. If there are to be reductions, they should start at the top in Birmingham city council.

The CAB had been planning for some council cuts for some time, going back to March 2010, but suddenly, out of the blue, the bureaux were told in December just before Christmas that they would lose all their funding from March 2011. The CAB then made repeated approaches to the council to try to find a way forward. What have they been told? “Sorry, you will have to close by March, but you can reapply for a fresh funding stream in August this year.” That means that the CAB’s generalist advice services will close down for five months, with no certainty whatever that there will be support afterwards.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Davey]

This is a wider point that applies beyond Birmingham. I certainly agree that it is important that local authorities and citizens advice bureaux in these difficult times try to work together. I will talk about that in a moment, if I can make some progress.

I can give a view from the heart. A few years ago in my constituency, my local council signed up to a three-year strategic partnership with Kingston CAB to ensure that it had stability of funding. That is one issue discussed in the debate. I understand that local authorities are under serious pressure at the moment, as are Government, Whitehall Departments and all those across the public sector. We have some difficult funding times, which is hardly a secret, and such long-term deals need to be seen in that context. From my local experience, I can recommend that strategic partnerships with key voluntary players, such as the CAB and the local council, can resolve such problems more easily.

[Steve McCabe]

I simply wanted to ask the Minister whether he is responding as part of a double act with the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming). Will he ask the hon. Gentleman why there was no mention of transitional funds in the council report in November? That seems to have emerged when the hon. Gentleman made his contribution today.

[Mr Davey]

When I eventually get to that point in my speech, I will say that prior to today I was aware that there was transitional funding. I do not think that it has emerged in the past few minutes. [Interruption.] Labour Members need to hear this, because there is a backdrop to the debate, which is the record deficit that the Administration inherited.

We have had to take very difficult decisions. One of the most difficult decisions I have had to take as Minister meant telling the chief executive of Citizens Advice that his budget—this was before Gillian Guy took over—had to be cut in-year by a significant percentage. I did not like having to deliver that decision, but I knew that we had to take tough decisions because we have such a difficult spending climate. It is exceedingly important that those tough decisions are taken fairly and are implemented. Local authorities will have to face up to that issue—Birmingham city council, Kingston council and other councils as well. I shall give way to my hon. Friend, but I hope that he realises that I need to make progress after his intervention.