HMRC: Building our Future Plan

Debate between Stuart C McDonald and Hannah Bardell

Thursday 28th April 2016 Commons Chamber

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

I should like to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) for securing this debate. There have been plenty of thoughtful and, indeed, robust contributions so far, with Members—notably all on this side of the House—doing their best to scrutinise the general principles behind HMRC’s proposals as well as individual local proposals. I shall add my tuppence-worth in a moment. What shines through in this debate is the frustration, which I share, at not having enough information or attempts at justification to enable us to do our job of scrutinising the proposals thoroughly at a strategic and local level.

Whatever view people might take of these proposals, they are certainly radical. As we have heard, thousands of jobs could be lost and a 93% cut in the number of HMRC offices could be implemented. This is not tinkering around the edges in any way, shape or form. It is therefore not only right but imperative to ask questions about how such cuts and closures will impact on HMRC’s ability to collect taxes and tackle tax dodging, particularly at a time of huge public concern over that issue in the light of the Panama papers. It is right that we should ask about the consequences for the towns and cities in which tax offices are marked for closure. It is also absolutely right that we should pose some of the many questions that the hard-working, dedicated and expert staff in our constituencies have raised.

Perhaps the Minister will be able to answer some of our questions today, but I must emphasise that debates alone will not be enough. We need the people behind these proposals to come here to explain them directly to Parliament. That would allow Members to get stuck into the nuts and bolts and to get behind the management-speak and buzzwords that are too often passed off as answers. If that does not happen, staff and taxpayers will be left questioning whether HMRC is really “building our future”, as the glossy brochure states, or whether this is in fact a question of buildings forcing our future. It has already been pointed out that this is taking place in the context of the expiry of the extraordinary contracts that were entered into in 2001, when 600 or so properties were sold to the offshore company, Mapeley Steps, and then leased back, PFI-style, to HMRC. Those contracts expire in the years leading up to 2021. In the absence of answers to our questions, many will conclude that this is more about digging HMRC out of the hole that it jumped into in 2001, rather than being about any kind of strategy. That is the only conclusion open to us.

The remaining questions are many and varied, but I shall get down to the basics of the issue. Why is 13 the magic number? Why are 13 offices preferable to 30 or 530? Why is the sensible range of hub sizes calculated at 1,200 to 6,000 staff? And if that size of office is perfectly efficient, why should offices such as Cumbernauld, which are within that range, have to close? Does the proposed configuration take suitable account of the expertise and local knowledge that can be built up by having a presence across the country? For example, the offices in Aberdeen and Inverness have experts in oil and fishing. And does it take into account the expertise that will be lost through employees being unable to travel to new locations?

The brochures and press releases tell us that saving £100 million a year by 2025 is apparently the goal. We are told:

“Moving more of HMRC’s work out of central London, which has some of the world’s most expensive office space, will enable HMRC to make substantial savings”.

How has that figure been calculated, particularly when HMRC does not know exactly where the new hubs will be? And how is the idea of moving out of expensive city centre locations consistent with closing offices in Cumbernauld, East Kilbride and Bathgate, for example, and centralising them in big prime city centre sites in Glasgow and Edinburgh? Can we see the sums?

[Hannah Bardell]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. On the specific issue of centralisation, virtually no work has been done in my constituency of Livingston to assess the impact of the proposals in relation to transport and travel. The distance between Livingston and Edinburgh is relatively short, but what about the people in Dundee who will be expected to travel? Is it not clear that this is an ill-conceived and ill-thought-out proposal?

[Stuart C. McDonald]

Absolutely.

We want to see the sums and the justifications for the proposals. Will each of these local decisions be revisited if the sums do not add up? Has the effect on local communities been factored into HMRC’s considerations? Does it feature at all? I have had a similar experience to that of my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron), in that when I asked the Minister about this, his written answer stated simply that HMRC

“will undertake all necessary consultations and impact assessment work to inform”

its plans. No one is suggesting that any town or city where a public sector office is based can assume that the office will be there forever, but it is far from unreasonable to say that the local economic impact of office closures will be a significant factor in decision making, so what weight has been attached to that?

Most important to me and many MPs here are the questions of our constituents—the dedicated, skilled staff in the tax offices. They want to know whether jobs are moving with them or whether they are moving to new roles in a new location. HMRC claims that people will be better able to develop careers up to senior level, but my constituents fear that their good-quality roles will be replaced with poorer-quality work. How did HMRC calculate that 90% of employees will be within reasonable daily travel? Not only does it not know where offices will be, but reasonableness of travel does not just depend on distance but transport links, parking spaces, and accessibility. Will those issues be assessed on an individual basis?

For other staff, including a good number in my constituency, challenges arise through disabilities and care commitments. Why has HMRC not undertaken a proper equality impact assessment of its proposals? Why did HMRC change its HR policy in February 2016, particularly when redundancies were on the horizon, so that union members, as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West mentioned, were no longer entitled to take a trade union rep to one-to-one discussions?

Most concerning are the questions around the 152 compulsory redundancy notices that have been served. How can they be genuine redundancies given that the work that the employees are doing is continuing, that there are no immediate plans to close the offices, and that the Department has recruited over 1,000 new staff in other locations at the same grades? What is the explanation for that? Why will HMRC’s chief executive not meet the Public and Commercial Services Union about alternatives to compulsory redundancy? How can all that be happening while HMRC is apparently spending £1 million a month on overtime to mask staffing shortfalls?