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HMRC (Office Closures)

I will keep my comments brief, because many hon. Members feel as I do. There are many similarities between Great Yarmouth and Southend in the stories and problems related by the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Mr. Wright). My personal interaction with HMRC started in 2006, shortly after my election in 2005, when the executive summary of a technical office accommodation review said:""No jobs will be lost directly as a result of this proposal."" However, buried in the document, reference was made to 344 jobs, which I was told were nothing to worry about because they would go through natural wastage. How offensive it is to discuss people's livelihoods as being naturally wasted. That is insulting to anyone. In 2004, 2,491 people were employed by HMRC in Rochford and Southend, East, but the 2011 figure is projected to be only 1,500, a loss of about 1,000 jobs. It is now clear that one of the two major office blocks in Southend—Alexander house and Portcullis house—will close entirely. The Mapeley saga could not be made up. If it was in Private Eye one would think it satirical that the Inland Revenue was offshoring its property arrangements. That is shabby and duplicitous, and if anyone else did it, no doubt the Treasury would examine the arrangement to see whether it was tax avoidance or something more serious. In Southend, unemployment is higher than the regional and national average, as it is in Great Yarmouth. There is enormous inconsistency, with some Departments not recognising the value of local jobs in pockets of deprivation in the east and south-east of England, but recognising it in the need for regeneration. All credit to the Department for Communities and Local Government for recognising that Southend, Great Yarmouth and other seaside towns with pockets of deprivation need regeneration. Some money comes forward in one hand, but is taken away by the other hand through all the administrative costs associated with the changes. The Lyons review needs further consideration, because for our constituents the situation is even worse than the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth said, not only because of the jobs that are going, but because when there are future big infrastructure projects in towns consideration will be given to areas with deprivation over a longer period. Opposite Portcullis house in Southend are some tower blocks where the occupants are in the bottom 10 per cent. of deprivation in the whole United Kingdom. For many of them work is hard to find and they have difficult family situations. They are exactly the sort of people whom we should be helping. The Government are trying to get young, single mothers back into work, as we will if we are in government, and jobs in HMRC, which are predominantly part-time, are critical, yet the heart of them has been ripped out. Constructive dismissal has been mentioned, because people will have a journey of one and a half hours. The hon. Member for Great Yarmouth is right in saying that they are being treated shabbily by being expected to travel long distances. In Southend, in addition to part-time work, there is also monthly periodic work with VAT returns, and dealing with peak flows and so on. Over 20 or 30 years, many people have changed their personal arrangements to fit in with HMRC, which is now jettisoning them because those arrangements are no longer convenient for it. The relationship and merger between Customs and Excise and the Inland Revenue is not working well. It is certainly not working well in Southend. The cultural clash, with misunderstandings and constant change, is difficult. Only last weekend, I sat down with someone who told me that she used to enjoy her job and used to be able to do a good job, but with the changes, and with IT infrastructure and files in a different place, she is completely demotivated and cannot do her job as well as she did it in the old-fashioned way. The merger is not working. I had a meeting with the acting chairman of HMRC, who was then Paul Gray, but the relationship locally between management and Members of Parliament is appalling, certainly in Southend. That is a criticism not of individuals, but of the structure. Southend has a relatively small but important IT operation, an anti-fraud operation, a VAT processing operation and some slightly more traditional operations. Because of the reporting lines, many different people are in charge of different departments, but no one in HMRC in Southend is in overall charge, so it is impossible for me, as a Member of Parliament, to have a relationship with a local employer of 2,500 people. I encourage the Minister to appoint one senior individual in HMRC's hubs in constituencies to represent it in the local community. I am not the only person who wants such a relationship; the chief executive of Southend borough council, the leader of the council and other civic and community groups want HMRC to integrate with the community. There is much to be done, and it is clear from hon. Members' comments that there are many problems.