Gibson makes demand to save Wick tax office
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
LOCAL MSP Rob Gibson has issued a challenge to the Westminster’s chief secretary to the Treasury – save the Wick tax office.
The SNP representative for Caithness, Sutherland and Ross welcomed news over the weekend that over 2000 HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) officers are to be recruited to recover unpaid tax, but added that this must lead to the employees at Wick keeping their jobs.
He made the comments following the Liberal Democrats’ conference speech by Treasury secretary and Highland MP Danny Alexander in which he discussed tackling tax evasion with increased staffing.
Mr Gibson said that the employees based in Wick would be ideally suited to be incorporated into the plans to increase revenue lost from unpaid taxes.
“The long-term future for the local HMRC experienced staff and their Wick office must be assured. They can contribute hugely to the task of rooting out tax evasion,” said Mr Gibson.
“Danny Alexander is visiting Caithness on Friday so he should bring news of a final reprieve to the Wick office which faced a stay of execution earlier this year. Now is the time to stop centralisation of HMRC services. Wick workers with wide experience can gather taxes to reduce pressures on public spending. They have the skills so, Mr Alexander, see that they keep their jobs.”
In his speech at the party conference in Birmingham over the weekend, Mr Alexander announced that an additional 2250 HMRC staff will move into new anti-evasion and tax avoidance jobs.
Over 1000 of these jobs are being advertised this month in a bid to collect an extra £7 billion a year by the end of the parliament.
This is despite the fact that staff at the Wick office received official confirmation just last week that their office would close in March 2014.
The Public and Commercial Services Union Wick office secretary Allan Tait said that staff support the call for Mr Alexander to bring good news to the Far North when he visits on Friday to be the guest speaker at the Caithness Chamber of Commerce’s annual business dinner.
“We would obviously support any suggestion that additional work is brought into the office here, and any additional staff,” said Mr Tait.
“The current staff are more than capable of doing this work and it would be good for the Caithness economy to get more Westminster jobs into the area.”
Mr Gibson has been a strong supporter of the union-led Wick Wants Work campaign which was launched to try and save the tax office jobs.
“This ongoing closure has been hanging over the staff’s heads for seven or eight years so that’s not really fair for anyone up here,” added Mr Tait.
“From that point of view it would be ideal to get some progress with some new work based up here.”
SNP leader and First Minister Alex Salmond met workers last April and welcomed a stay of execution for two years this summer. The office had been due to close in March 2012 but after a well-supported campaign against the move HMRC decided to keep it open until 2014.
Just last week the department confirmed that the revised closure date for the Wick office would be March 2014 – as staff had expected.
The union-led Wick Wants Work campaign won support from members of the public, politicians from all parties and the Scottish Trades Union Congress.
Like others across the UK, tax compliance staff in Wick work to help tackle the estimated £120 billion in taxes that are evaded, avoided or go uncollected every year.
