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HMRC (Office Closures)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for setting out his suspicions. Let me put it no more strongly; I do not think that the hon. Gentleman wants to put it any more strongly than that. It would be helpful if the Minister would discuss that concern and any representations the Treasury and HMRC might have received from the Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) and the Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's Treasury, the hon. Member for St. Helens, North (Mr. Watts): I think that that would be the basis for the suspicions of the hon. Member for Chorley. The hon. Member for Great Yarmouth set out well the detailed concerns of his constituents, and gave some significant case studies—examples of the difficulties created for some of his constituents. There is strong local cross-party opposition to the closure of Havenbridge house. I have been in touch with Brandon Lewis, the Conservative parliamentary candidate for Great Yarmouth, who has been heavily involved in opposing the proposals for some time. He has made representations to the shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond), who visited Great Yarmouth a week or so ago. I do not know whether the Minister has had an opportunity to meet representatives of the Public and Commercial Services Union in Great Yarmouth and discuss the proposals with them, but if he has not done so I suggest he should visit Brandon Lewis's website, on which there is a video of an interview with Lee Sutton of PCS and a clip from a public meeting that Mr. Lewis attended with employees at Havenbridge house. There is agreement across the board in Great Yarmouth about the damage that may well be done. No Government or putative Government would rule out ever making any office closures or staff cuts. However, there are questions that the Minister should address, many of which have been raised during the debate. I want to highlight three areas on which I would be grateful for a response from the Minister. Some of them have already been touched on. First, how much will be saved by the consolidation of offices? The consolidation and closure of offices is part of HMRC's transformation plan. The National Audit Office considered the process and published a report in July, but the figures for March 2008 stated that of the £2.4 billion of savings that it was hoped to achieve, the benefits were largely from programmes that were under way when the transformation programme began. Since last year there have been significant changes in property values. It would be helpful if the Minister were to give the House some details of the impact that changes in property prices will have made; I suspect that the savings may have been reduced as a consequence. It would help if we were to be kept fully informed. My second point is that HMRC faces various initiatives, such as reorganisation, office closures, staff movement and so on, and they appear to be having a significant impact on staff morale. I have met many HMRC employees and trade union representatives during the past year or so, and there is no doubt—I think that the Government recognise the fact—that HMRC has a problem with staff morale. I shall highlight two sets of figures, which I know that the Minister will be aware of as he gave them to me in answer to parliamentary questions. Many hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth, said that experienced and skilled staff were being lost. Staff turnover at HMRC is 8.77 per cent. overall. In contact centres, it is an astonishing 15.76 per cent. The figures for sick leave, too, are striking. The average is 10.37 days a year; at contact centres, it is 17.45 days a year. Those figures raise a number of questions, but they are certainly indicative of a failure in staff morale. My next point relates to taxpayer contact with HMRC. Much of our debate has focused on the concerns of employees—understandably so—but what about the quality of service being provided to the taxpayer? Will the office closures and staff reductions have an impact on that? We should remember that the tax system has been moving towards self-assessment; and the past 10 to 12 years has seen the introduction of the tax credit system, which imposes considerable demands on claimants and HMRC. It could be argued that greater self-assessment, tax credit claims and so on will result in the need for a more face-to-face service, with more people needing to meet HMRC staff in order to deal with their tax.