MP fears for North public sector jobs

Dec 2 2008 by William Green, The Journal

THE North East is facing the threat of "damaging" public job cuts as ministers slash costs to pay for a £20bn package supposed to boost the economy.

Newcastle Central MP Jim Cousins issued the warning after Treasury Minister Stephen Timms admitted further cuts in HM Revenue and Customs – which has a major base in the region – could not be ruled out under a new £5bn efficiency drive ordered by the Chancellor.

Ministers have already confirmed hundreds of jobs have been axed at the Washington office of HMRC, where 25 million personal records went missing last year.

The latest admission came during a hearing of the Commons Treasury sub-committee, which is conducting an inquiry into the departments overseen by the Chancellor.

Mr Cousins, a member of the committee, asked: “Does the increased efficiency savings target point to an increase in the head count reduction to be achieved by HMRC and to an increase in the closure of tax offices?”

Mr Timms said: “We haven’t worked through what that is going to mean for individual departments.”

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury added: “I would say that at this stage I wouldn’t envisage additional office closures.

“The exercise we have been working on with rationalisation of the estate has always had quite a long-term focus.

“It has been designed to provide an estate configuration that meets HMRC long-term business needs.”

On staff cuts, he added: “That is possible. I don’t think that can be ruled out at this stage.

“But we haven’t yet done the work to sense what the implications throughout Government departments are.”

Angela Eagle, a more junior Treasury Minister, said departments joining forces to increase their spending power could produce efficiencies.

“There is no head count reduction attached to it,” said the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury.

Speaking later, Mr Cousins said he would be challenging Mr Timms over job losses, saying: “HMRC is part of the economic base of Newcastle.

“One of the reasons Newcastle has got a better prospect than, say a city like Leeds or Manchester, is the big base in public administration jobs.”

He added cuts were already taking place, with many of the workers at risk being low-paid women with poor pensions.

“To upscale the losses we are going to take would be highly damaging for us and I hope we can head that off,” said the Labour MP.

Sir Alan Beith, Liberal Democrat MP for Berwick, said: “The North East is very heavily dependent on public sector jobs, which means the Government efficiency savings are at risk of having a higher impact than in other areas.”

He added it put additional responsibility on the Government to promote jobs in the region if public sector posts were cut as a result of efficiency savings.