In closing DWP offices and cutting jobs in areas such as Garston and Halewood including the Belle Vale office, Therese Coffey has exposed the Tories’ rhetoric on levelling up to be utterly hollow. Ministers are today cutting quality public sector jobs from communities who need them in the middle of a devastating cost of living crisis. It illustrates again if that were needed how unfeeling and callous this Tory government really is.

It makes no sense to be threatening experienced staff with redundancies when the Department needs more staff, not less, to deal with high workloads. The Belle Vale office employs 317 staff who now wait anxiously to hear whether they will lose their jobs. It makes even less sense to threaten closure of some of the most accessible DWP offices for claimants whilst leaving older buildings with less access untouched.

I have secured an urgent meeting with the PCS union to discuss possible next steps.