Inland Revenue: Location of Offices (Hansard, 16 March 1995)

§ The Minister of State, Department of Social Security (Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish)
My Lords, successive governments have followed a policy of dispersing government jobs from London and the south east to areas of the country where accommodation costs are lower and where unemployment is high. Relocating PA YE work has been part of that policy.

§ Lord Boyd-Carpenter
My Lords, does not my noble friend realise that it is a very great convenience for the taxpayer if the tax office which deals with his affairs is close enough for him to be able to have conversations and personal contact with staff there? If you happen to live in the south of England and find that your tax affairs are dealt with from, for example, Walsall, you are driven to conducting your business by correspondence only rather than by personal contact. Is not the convenience of the taxpayer and the facility of the working of the system very important?

§ Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish
My Lords, most of us prefer to keep the taxman at sufficient arm's length so that we deal with him only by post. Perhaps I may advise my noble friend that there is a network of tax inquiry centres throughout the country, including in London and the south east, where people can have their inquiries dealt with directly. I am a little surprised, however, that my noble friend does not seem to approve of the policy, given that it started in 1959 when he was a distinguished member of the Government, first, as Minister of Pensions and National Insurance and then as Chief Secretary to the Treasury.

§ Lord Boyd-Carpenter
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that kindly personal reminiscence, but will he follow my example and repent of a great many of his decisions?

§ Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish
My Lords, I have no intention of repenting of any of my decisions, and I do not think that it is my place to repent on behalf of any of my noble friends.

§ Lord Eatwell
My Lords, does the Minister agree that with the introduction of self-assessment in the income tax system, it is highly desirable that the disinterested advice of Inland Revenue officers should be readily and easily available? In the light of those changes, are not the proposed locations of the tax offices highly inefficient and most undesirable?

§ Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish
My Lords, I am most surprised that the noble Lord seems to be taking the view that governments should not disperse jobs to those areas of the country where they are most needed. 930 Perhaps I may advise him that, by using modern information technology methods of communication and so forth, the tax inquiry centres which I mentioned earlier are well able to deal with people making personal inquiries. Indeed, many of them are directly linked by computer to the place where an individual's tax affairs are handled, which means that the taxpayer's records can be called up on screen so that the taxpayer can be given advice. I should have thought that that was perfectly sensible.

Lord Bruce of Donington
My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the views expressed by his noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter are widely shared among Inland Revenue staff, and that the Inland Revenue has always made it clear that personal contact and negotiation between its staff and taxpayers frequently make inquiries much shorter and produce much more satisfactory results than does protracted correspondence?

§ Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish
My Lords, I think that I have made the point that the tax inquiry centres enable people to have direct contact if they want it, but I suspect that the majority of people conduct most of their tax business by correspondence. I repeat that I think that the dispersion of jobs from London and the south east has been a sensible government policy. I am surprised to have two critics of that policy from the Labour Party. I do not think that living and working in Glasgow or Cardiff is too much of an encumbrance for those concerned, given that conditions are perhaps less crowded than here in London.

§ Lord Gisborough
My Lords, does my noble friend accept that it is extremely important for towns in the north, such as Glasgow, Leeds and Middlesbrough, that the policy of the dispersion of government departments should continue, and that that policy should not be changed?

§ Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish
My Lords, I am grateful for my noble friend's support. As he rightly mentioned, areas such as Middlesbrough and Sunderland in the north gain from the jobs being dispersed. Indeed, there has been a similar gain with the announcement this morning of Toyota's development of 1,000 new jobs in Derbyshire.

§ Lord Eatwell
My Lords, is the Minister aware that the Question has nothing to do with the dispersion of offices and that the majority of taxpayers in this country live outside London? The Question relates to whether taxpayers can readily gain advice. Given that the Government are introducing self-assessment, would it not be more consistent if the Government provided that advice in the localities where taxpayers live, whether in London or elsewhere?

§ Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish
My Lords, the logic of that position is that we take jobs away from those areas to which they have been relocated over many years and return them to London and the south east—

Noble Lords
No!

§ Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish
Yes, that is the logic of the position. If the noble Lord does not like it, 931 he had better think out the logic of the question that he has asked. As I have said, there are tax inquiry centres throughout the country. For my own part, my tax affairs are dealt with by the taxman in Cardiff—and I have no complaints at all about that.

§ Viscount Mountgarret
My Lords, is my noble friend aware—from the remarks that he made earlier, it is obvious that he is not—that although a great many people may wish to deal with their tax affairs by letter, an enormous number of people cannot or do not want to do so? It is most important to give those people the facility to attend a local tax office.

§ Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish
My Lords, I have already explained to the House—and I do so again to my noble friend—that there is a national network of tax inquiry centres, many of which have computer facilities which allow staff to call up on screen the individual tax records of those who attend the centre, thus enabling them to discuss the matter with the full records before them.