Oral Answers to Questions

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am afraid that we have managed to get through only 13 questions in more than 25 minutes. We need to speed up, because I wish to accommodate the Back-Bench Members who are patiently waiting to put their inquiries.

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

Q3. The proposed closure of Cumbernauld tax office will see 1,300 good-quality jobs lost to the town, with many others under threat as millions of pounds of spending disappear from the local economy. That is just one of over 150 tax office closures being overseen by the Treasury. If the Government genuinely want to build stronger towns and are concerned about towns like Cumbernauld, surely they must now put a stop to HMRC’s damaging tax office closures.

[Mr Lidington]

I completely understand the concern, particularly among hard-working civil servants in Cumbernauld who expected to be reassigned. There is now a difference in the way in which citizens choose to interact with HMRC, with fewer people wanting or needing to access an office and more people being willing and choosing to work with the taxman online, which is clearly going to have implications. It seems to me that the priority has to be to maintain a high quality of service for businesses and individual taxpayers.