BIS Sheffield/Government Departments outside London

Roger Mullin Excerpts

Monday 9th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) not only on leading the charge in the debate, but on his quite excellent forensic analysis of why this is a deeply flawed policy decision.

The dispersal of Government offices has been argued for for many years—from as far back as the early 1960s. Although this is not a new debate, therefore, it may be wise to rehearse some of the reasons why dispersal can be forcefully argued for. I would like to focus in my short speech on just three.

First, on cost, it will be considerably more cost-effective to locate Departments in Sheffield or Kirkcaldy than in overheated London. A number of hon. Members have pointed to the fact that they cannot find, or cannot get released, any detailed cost-benefit analysis. Perhaps that is not surprising if no proper cost-benefit analysis has been undertaken in the first place.

Secondly, this is about not just the cost of dispersal but the benefits to the recipient regions. In particular, if dispersal happens in areas that have relatively weak economies compared with London, the benefit of even a few hundred well-paid and secure jobs can be considerable. Many towns in the north of England would benefit greatly if there was more dispersal out of London.

The third point I want to raise, which is much less talked about generally, although a number of hon. Members have raised it today, is the benefit to Government intelligence and decision making. It is unhealthy for all key decision makers and advisers to be based in one location, particularly if that location is out of character with the rest of the country. Dispersal provides an opportunity for better engagement. When we presented the case for this debate at the Backbench Business Committee, I argued that one of the problems is that this decision seems to reek of group-think by the Government. To put it in a slightly more academic fashion, it reminded me of reading for the first time the work of Kenneth Hammond on his cognitive continuum theory, with which I know everybody is deeply familiar. He argued that decision making can be on a continuum from highly intuitive, at one extreme, to highly analytic, at the other extreme, with a mix in between. It strikes me that the reason why a lot of evidence cannot be provided for this decision is that it reeks more of intuition than of detailed analysis of the true benefit.

In the Backbench Business Committee, I was asked why a Scottish MP would want to speak in this debate. Perhaps, without wishing to be accused of any arrogance, there might be one or two examples that could be brought from Scotland to show the benefit of dispersal.

[The Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise (Anna Soubry)]

Give us some.

[Roger Mullin]

Well, I will give the right hon. Lady 15. I was going to make it three, but because of her intervention I know she would like many more. The first, of many, is that of the five major buildings that house all the policy civil servants in Scotland, two are based well beyond Edinburgh. To give an example close to the functions of BIS, locating lifelong learning well outside Edinburgh in a place closer to the majority of higher education and further education institutions has given great benefit. When I talked to the principal of a college in Scotland who had originally been a principal in England, he commented that he found it so much easier to get access to senior civil servants in Scotland than south of the border.

Since the Minister kindly invited me to provide more examples, let me talk of Scotland’s 34 executive non-departmental public bodies, the majority of which—some 19—are based outwith the capital, Edinburgh. This includes headquarters in such centres as Inverness, Grantown-on-Spey, Dundee, Stirling, Balloch, Hamilton, Newbridge and Paisley, in addition to Edinburgh—[Interruption]—and Glasgow, of course. Some of these play a very significant role in supporting local economies, in addition to being cost-effective locations.

I can go even further, to satisfy the Minister, on to those whom one might want to influence in terms of policy-making advice—the cabinet, for example. Way back in 2008, my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) instituted a then fairly modest initiative to take cabinet meetings, during the summer recess, to one or two different locations away from Edinburgh. This has developed over the years until, now, in mid-2016, 42 cabinet meetings have been held outwith Edinburgh. In the past year alone, cabinet meetings have been held in Dumfries, Aberdeen, Alloa, Inverness, Cupar, Ullapool, Oban, Coatbridge, Greenock, and West Dunbartonshire. Those meetings help with engagement because when they are over, public meetings are held so that the public can come along and question cabinet members. The benefit of that is that thousands of ordinary members of the public have been able to come along and influence decision making.

We should be debating not so much why 247 jobs are being moved from Sheffield to London, but why tens of thousands more jobs are not being located out of London into the regions and nations of the UK.