I am really pleased that the hon. Gentleman says we are doing a good job, because I think we are, and he is absolutely right. We now must make sure others do not just sign up, but actually start to deliver. On the work the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, for example, has been doing with jobcentres,

I recently went to my own jobcentre in Beeston—not for reasons connected with 7 May, I quickly add—and looked at the work it is doing with reserves and veterans. That is sporadic; not every jobcentre or Jobcentre Plus “gets it”, to put it in that way, but increasingly they do and that is invariably because of the good work of Members of Parliament and local councils.

HM Revenue and Customs has undertaken limited decommissioning work on the Tax Credit systems. All decommissioning costs are paid through Cap Gemini as our prime supplier and the value of those payments is £1.2m.

It would not, because that would delay the progress we have made. With regard to the hon. Gentleman’s part of the world, if we go to local people and ask them to work together with their neighbours, right across the country we are seeing that they are able and willing to do precisely that. All the deals that have been struck have been proposed locally and are having a big impact on local economies, including in Telford.

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The 22,000 firms that have received start-up loans have been supported, but the new British Business Bank, something that we have not had before, has supported £2.3 billion of financing, a lot of it to the scale-up firms that he is talking about. Ultimately, we need a strong banking system. After the chaos the banking system was left in, we have been turning that around with stronger regulation. Banking balance sheets are starting to improve and move in the right direction, but it has taken an awful long time to turn the mess around.

The Tax Credits systems will continue to be supported by HM Revenue and Customs until such time as all Tax Credits customers have migrated to Universal Credits. We also expect some retrospective work on Tax Credits to continue after the migration has completed for error/fraud/debt reasons. Costs related to providing this continuing support will be included in the contract replacement work.

Any HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) costs that are a direct and clear consequence of supporting the introduction of Universal Credit are funded and met by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Universal Credit Programme and are included in the DWP Universal Credit Business Case.

Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) trained and deployed a flexible resource of just over 2000 staff from across the Department and deployed them in stages from 23rd June until the end of the Tax credit peak to ensure that the peak was a better experience for customers this year than it has been in earlier years. The Tax Credit peak this year was a huge team effort with staff of all grades including senior members of staff volunteering to help support our customers by taking telephone calls.

We do not have a record of how many of these additional staff were apprentices.

Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) trained and deployed a flexible resource of just over 2000 staff from across the Department and deployed them in stages from 23rd June until the end of the Tax credit peak to ensure that the peak was a better experience for customers this year than it has been in earlier years. The Tax Credit peak this year was a huge team effort with staff of all grades including senior members of staff volunteering to help support our customers by taking telephone calls.

We do not have a record of how many of these additional staff were apprentices.

Over the 7 year period from 07/08 to 13/14 there is an annual c£3m productivity improvement a year on average.

HM Revenue and Customs is in the process of preparing a Business Case to manage the end of the Aspire contract in June 2017.

HMRC has one of the largest outsourced IT contracts in the world, enabling us to deliver a very wide range of services to more than 50 million customers.

We are committed to delivering all this for the minimum cost to the taxpayer. As the NAO report recognises, the Aspire contract helped the department to collect almost £506 billion for the UK in the last year alone as well as improving services to customers.

The NAO also recognises the progress that HMRC has made over the last two years in developing in-house technical skills, so that we are less dependent on external suppliers. For instance, we recently opened a new Digital Delivery Centre in Newcastle as part of our Digital transformation programme.

We will continue to improve the performance of the contract over the next three years.

Over the 7 year period from 07/08 to 13/14 there is an annual c£3m productivity improvement a year on average.

HM Revenue and Customs is in the process of preparing a Business Case to manage the end of the Aspire contract in June 2017.

HMRC has one of the largest outsourced IT contracts in the world, enabling us to deliver a very wide range of services to more than 50 million customers.

We are committed to delivering all this for the minimum cost to the taxpayer. As the NAO report recognises, the Aspire contract helped the department to collect almost £506 billion for the UK in the last year alone as well as improving services to customers.

The NAO also recognises the progress that HMRC has made over the last two years in developing in-house technical skills, so that we are less dependent on external suppliers. For instance, we recently opened a new Digital Delivery Centre in Newcastle as part of our Digital transformation programme.

We will continue to improve the performance of the contract over the next three years.

Fujitsu provide data centre hosting for many of HM Revenue and Customs' (HMRC) IT systems at multiple UK locations but they do so on HMRC's behalf and do not hold any data outside of the Department's direct control. HMRC ensure all of our systems are appropriately controlled so that IT providers do not have routine access to taxpayer information.

For security reasons we are unable to share the specific location of Fujitsu/HMRC data centres.

Under the guidance that we give assessment providers for journey times, no one should have to travel for more than 90 minutes on public transport to go to an assessment, so if that was what the hon. Gentleman’s constituent was told, that was clearly a mistake. Ninety minutes is the maximum time people are supposed to have to travel by public transport, and for no longer.

We have changed Ofsted guidance to ensure it can check whether schools are adequately fulfilling their responsibility to provide independent advice and guidance to young people. We have also changed the nature of the National Careers Service contracts to ensure that it spends 5% of its contract value on providing career advice and guidance to young people. We have therefore taken a great many steps, but we never think that the job is done—we are not remotely complacent—and we are open to other suggestions, including the hon. Gentleman’s, on how to improve the quality of advice and guidance provided to young people.

The hon. Gentleman will be well aware that the DSG bids are being evaluated. I will not be in a position to enlighten the House further until the evaluation has been completed.

The UKBA was closed in March 2013.

HM Revenue and Customs staff numbers for Consultancy and external contractors are reported in the HMRC Annual Report and Accounts 2013-14 in the Statistical Tables, Table 5: Staff Numbers (page 83).

HMRC annual report and accounts: 2013 to 2014 - Publications - GOV.UK

These data are not available by business area.

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) costs for external contractors are published on the Cabinet Office website:

www.gov.uk

HMRC costs for consultancy are reported in the HMRC Annual Report and Accounts 2013-14 under Other Administration Costs: Other Expenditure (page 138) and Programme Costs: Other Programme Costs (page 140) and are audited by the National Audit Office.

These costs include those for the VOA, which are consolidated with the costs for the core Department.

HMRC annual report and accounts: 2013 to 2014 - Publications - GOV.UK

There have been no explicit discussions abut a ‘Building for the Future’ programme.

However as part of the recently announced Growth Deal with The Marches Local Enterprise Partnership my officials are in regular discussion with both the Partnership and Telford and Wrekin council about the

use of land assets in Telford managed by the Homes and Communities Agency and the joint stewardship arrangements.

Abbey House is occupied by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) under the provisions of the STEPS Private Finance Initiative (PFI) contract, which runs until 2 April 2021. Parkside Court is occupied by HMRC under an inter department agreement with the Land Registry, who have principal responsibility for this property; the occupancy agreement expires on 5 January 2017. Matheson House is on the HMRC estate, and the lease is not due for renewal until 2 April 2021.