HMRC Office Closure (Walsall)

Debate between Valerie Vaz and David Winnick

Tuesday 10th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

I should tell the House that I do not intend taking the full time available, so Members will be spared that.

I thank the Financial Secretary for coming to the House to respond to the debate. I was alarmed and disappointed that I had to apply for this debate and was granted it so soon after the debate on HMRC closures on 29 April in this Chamber. The Minister will know there has been a worrying unilateral change on the part of HMRC, which has decided to close the Walsall office on 20 June 2016. That has been brought forward, much to the shock of people who work there.

This debate is about public servants and those who have worked in the public interest, and how we treat them. If we want society to thrive, we need a balance between the public sector and the private sector. The public sector provides the framework of a good society, doing the things that it is harder for the private sector to do and that the private sector says it wants Government to do. The debate last week showed how important it was for tax to be collected. All that revenue should go into public services, the NHS, education, skills and infrastructure, among other things.

In the previous debate I referred to the tax gap—the difference between the tax owed and the tax collected. The Minister referred to it too in his summing up. In a survey undertaken in 2014, Richard Murphy said that the tax gap stood at almost £119 billion from tax evasion. That figure has not been challenged, and that is the scale of the amount of tax that needs to come back into the public purse. We need to collect that in order to pay for everything the Government have invested in public services.

Today I hope to persuade the Minister of the case for retaining the office and dealing urgently with the issues of HMRC staff in Walsall. What happened to the Walsall office at Pattinson House offends British values and natural justice. Under “Building our Future” it was announced in November 2015 that the office was to close by March 2017. Then on 4 May HMRC decided that all personal tax staff were to be compulsorily moved to Birmingham some six weeks later, on 20 June 2016. A collective grievance had been brought against the office, and many staff fear that this announcement may be a reprisal for the collective grievance and a petition. I am pleased to see my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) in the Chamber. He and I were in the town centre that day and we saw how the public responded to the petition: some 500 signatures were collected in about an hour and a half, supporting the retention of the office. I do not believe I have had a response to the petition from the Department or from the Select Committee.

The grounds for the collective grievance were that HMRC failed to follow Cabinet Office redundancy protocols, including moving the administrative assistants into redundancy procedures unnecessarily; HMRC denied trade union representation in one-to-one discussions with staff about whether they could practically travel to Birmingham; HMRC failed to carry out an equality impact assessment for the closure; HMRC refused to offer staff the opportunity to move to sites other than Birmingham, despite alternative sites being more accessible for some staff; HMRC ignored evidence of increased journey times for Walsall staff, in favour of an unproven use of a variant of Google maps to estimate journey times; and HMRC refused to subject the closure plans to parliamentary scrutiny or to accept accountability for them. HMRC eventually responded to the grievance, but only to claim that it failed to meet the Department’s test of a legitimate grievance. HMRC refused to investigate the grievance under the Department’s procedures.

It cannot be right that the guidelines have not been followed and that the closure has been brought forward to June. The Minister has said in written answers and to the House that HMRC had given a commitment to staff that they would have a one-to-one meeting with their manager to discuss their options at least one year ahead of their office closure. That clearly has not happened in the case of Walsall. He also said that changing locations was not cutting staff, but the staff in Walsall have been given no choice and some are being made redundant. The Minister has also said that it is an operational matter, but who is the executive of HMRC accountable to? When the Minister said that the Government had asked HMRC to reduce costs, that is a policy matter, not an operational matter. The Minister said that the change would make it quicker and easier for taxpayers to report and pay their taxes online. Does that include those who have offshore accounts?

There are still appeals outstanding. Those who are out of scope for a move do not know what will happen to them. There are still concerns about travel support. The Public and Commercial Services Union has not been consulted. It was just told that a resource planning project had been announced. Now staff have been given six weeks to reorganise their lives and their caring responsibilities, when they were expecting that period to be almost a year.

I want to touch on the impact on Walsall. Walsall South has consistently higher levels of unemployment claimants than the rest of the region and the UK—4.4% of constituents claimed unemployment benefits, compared with a UK-wide figure of 2.5%. An assessment by Coventry City Council suggested that with the loss of quality jobs, almost £1.5 billion would be taken out of the local economy—a figure that I have cited before. Walsall South cannot afford to lose such a sum.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

I am pleased that my hon. Friend is putting the case so well. Does she agree that if HMRC’s decision goes ahead, it will have a negative effect on the borough as a whole? It is undesirable. A public body such as HMRC should not act in an arbitrary manner, as my hon. Friend has explained. Would it not be useful for the Minister, when he replies, to try to persuade HMRC to change its decision?

[Valerie Vaz]

I agree. The Government seem to do some things well—impose contracts on junior doctors, summarily change employees’ contracts, and dismiss them with no consultation and no negotiation.

Library Services (Walsall South)

Debate between Valerie Vaz and David Winnick

Monday 28th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for allowing this Adjournment debate about the libraries in Walsall South. I also thank our own House of Commons Library, which is staffed by qualified professionals, not volunteers. They are experts in their field, and the whole House values the service that they provide.

“Once upon a time” is the phrase used in countless books that children pick up in a library, and for many the library is their first encounter with a book. For parents with young children, it is a social place where they can meet other parents. Children have access to books and toys, librarians suggest books to try and some have even started clubs for young children. For older children, staff run “Children in Summer” reading challenges.

The National Literacy Trust surveyed more than 17,000 pupils and it reported earlier this month that those who use the library are twice as likely to be above-average readers as their peers who do not—18% compared with 9.5%. Furthermore, those who visit libraries are more than twice as likely to read outside class every day—47% compared with 22%. Indeed, Members might be aware of a recent poll, showing that seven of the top 10 most borrowed authors are children’s authors.

If we carry on with the threats to our libraries, we will deny the next generation not only the right to be whatever they want to be in their imagination, but their access to knowledge through books. A book first encountered in a library might then be bought as a personal favourite, just as I did when I discovered with my daughter Dylan Thomas’s “A Child’s Christmas in Wales”. If there is to be joined-up government, the Secretary of State for Education should also be concerned about libraries disappearing or changing. Nationally, almost 750,000 people visit a library every day, and, according to the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, that costs each person through local and national taxation 40p a week.

I shall touch on the statutory duties, because enshrined in the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964 is

“the duty of every library authority to provide a comprehensive and efficient library service for all persons desiring to make use thereof”.

There is also a duty to encourage adults and children to make full use of the library service, and the relevant Secretary of State has a duty to promote the improvement of libraries. Does the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport have plans to repeal the 1964 Act?

The local authority must also make a statement of what the service is trying to achieve, along with a description of local needs, including the general and specific needs of adults and children who live work and study in the area. So, you can imagine, Mr Speaker, the outcry in Walsall South when the council earmarked six libraries for closure.

In Walsall South there are libraries at Pheasey, Pleck, which serves Alumwell, Darlaston and south Walsall, and the central library is also in my constituency. This issue is not just about books; it is about a way of life and what the libraries represent. With unemployment increasing, they are needed more than ever as a support for development and new skills, and as a free public space for community cohesion.

That is what I found on 5 February outside Pleck library, where the local people wanted to present a petition—now 650 signatures strong—to save their library. Young people, senior citizens, people in work or resting, the local vicar and adults and children with diverse backgrounds and interests, from chess to internet shopping, were there. All were there using the library and protesting against its closure. Inside were a grandparent reading to a two-year-old, a hub of local people engaged in activity, and Councillor Dennis Anson’s advice surgery. I, too, have held advice surgeries in the library at Pheasey and in the central library.

In all the libraries in Walsall, there were more than 1 million visitors and more than 1 million books lent out in 2008 to 2010. The Minister has said that people have a right to campaign for their local libraries. Clearly, the council has failed to consult and to make an assessment of local needs.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

I am very pleased that my hon. Friend has secured this Adjournment debate. Does she accept that there is also much concern in my constituency about the possibility that a number of libraries will be closed there? In view of the very large-scale cuts, announced last Friday, that are now being undertaken by the council, does she agree that there is a fear that further libraries will be closed, be it in her constituency or in mine, and that we are bound to be very concerned about that on behalf of our constituents?

[Valerie Vaz]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I agree. There is a threat of closures across the whole of Walsall, including in his constituency and that of the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr Shepherd).

Consultation should be at a local level with the staff and the users, and it should not just be about how the service is changed to make savings or about how we use different technology. A few days after the Pleck protest, the council said the libraries would be safe for a year, but who knows what is in store for the future? An inquiry into Wirral’s library service in 2009 said there was strong case for reviewing the decision on services earmarked for closure when they were located in an area of significant deprivation and when they had interdependent links with schools and children’s centres. That could be a description of almost all these libraries. In Walsall, the librarians have to travel from one end of the borough to another, and the cost of travel time and schedules should be looked at as part of the consultation with the staff.

So what of the future? My constituents want libraries to be in buildings that are stand-alone, not part of another service, because they are places to work, to revise—just as I did in Richmond library—and use reference books, and to become skilled in information technology and to discover different types of music. My constituents want the staff to be professionally qualified people who provide them with expertise and support. Volunteers like Hitesh, who set up a chess club for young children, have their place, but they too are not free and would cost money to manage; all volunteers need supervision and training. My constituents want their libraries to be needs-driven, not demand-led, and to remain free. If libraries did charge, this would be a breach of the statutory duty to provide books free of charge for those who live and work in the area. My constituents said to me that they do not recall the closures as being part of any political party’s manifesto; they knew nothing about this at the election.

I could have come up with many statistics to make the case for keeping all the libraries, but it is about more than that because libraries are part of our heritage and part of the fabric of society; people have paid their taxes for services such as parks, hospitals and schools for the common good. Everyone, I am sure, has been into a public library at some time in their life. They are not just about borrowing the popular books. The most borrowed classic author was Roald Dahl, but Jane Austen and Shakespeare are also on the list. When the first library in Manchester was opened in 1852, Charles Dickens said that libraries

“will prove a source of pleasure and improvement in the cottages, the garrets and the cellars of the poorest of our people.”

I would add that they are not just for the poor but for everyone.

There are, on one count, 59 Members of this House who have written books. I am sure, Mr Speaker, that you will remember the joke: what is black and white and read all over? Yes, a book, and one hopes those books by my hon. Friends will be read all over—in all the public libraries. Sadly, the Minister is not on that list yet, although his esteemed parents are, but he did have the title of librarian as vice-president of the Oxford Union.

Finally, I would like to remind the Minister of famous librarians, who include politicians Golda Meir and Mao Tse-tung, the philosopher David Hume, and others such as Lewis Carroll, Benjamin Franklin and Jacob Grimm. As with all the best of Grimm’s stories, I hope that this one has a happy ending. With apologies to Mr Grimm, I would end as follows: “So the children and adults laughed and cheered as the Minister said, ‘Have no fear—your libraries are safe for the future’, and everyone in the kingdom was glad. The end.”

Education Maintenance Allowance (Walsall North)

Debate between Valerie Vaz and David Winnick

Wednesday 12th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

Much has been said, and rightly so, about the Government’s decision to end the education maintenance allowance. This debate relates purely and simply to my constituency, however; it addresses the impact that the abolition of EMA will have on Walsall North.

We should be quite clear that those 16 to 19-year-olds who are eligible for the allowance come from households that would certainly be considered to have low and, at most, medium incomes. The full benefit is £30 a week, which is not a very large sum, but it is very useful for those who take it up. In order to receive that full benefit, the person concerned would need to come from a household whose gross income is under £21,000. To receive £20 weekly, they would need to come from a household whose income is between £20,818 and £25,521. To receive £10 a week, the household income—gross, I again emphasise—would need to be between £25,522 and £30,810. Since EMA was introduced, there has never been any allowance for those from families whose income is above £30,810. We know the sorts of households that will be affected, therefore. The pupils involved would, understandably, be under some financial pressure. In some instances, they could well be under pressure to leave school at the first opportunity.

EMA was introduced by the Labour Government to encourage such pupils to stay on at school beyond the compulsory school leaving age. We should bear it in mind that it is almost taken for granted that the sons and daughters of MPs and other people earning a reasonable sum will carry on their schooling beyond 16. There are exceptions, but they are very much the exception. We should therefore be clear about the people we are talking about in this debate.

The purpose of EMA is not only to encourage pupils to stay on at school beyond 16; it is also to give them some financial assistance. Although £30 a week may not seem much, it is certainly a help. It helps pay for fares, food and other costs, and it comes in very handy.

I decided to write to the heads of the secondary schools in my constituency and Walsall college to find out the proportion of their students who are in receipt of EMA. Let me give some of the figures from the replies I received. The head of Willenhall school sports college stated in her reply to me that 63% of those in the sixth form received EMA. The figure for Pool Hayes arts and community school is 57%; for Frank F. Harrison engineering college, it is higher, at 75%; and for Walsall academy it is 51%.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate on what is such an important issue for Walsall. Does he agree that while cuts to EMA affect all communities, they hit the Asian community hardest, because the Pakistani community has a take-up of 77%, and the Bangladeshi community has a take-up of 88%?