WISH YOU Employment chief is yet to visit over cuts

THE UK Government minister who wants to close seven Jobcentres in Glasgow has refused several invitations to visit the city.

Damian Hinds, Minister for Employment, has been invited by MPs keen for him to speak directly to the people who will be affected by the cutbacks.

The Evening Times has also asked repeatedly to interview Mr Hinds but without success.

The consultation on closing three of the seven in Glasgow, Bridgeton, Castlemilk and Maryhill closes tomorrow.

But since the plan was announced Mr Hinds has not set foot in the city.

Instead he splits his time between his government offices in London and his constituency.

In Westminster he oversees a department that sat at desks using google maps and travel websites to decide the fate of Jobcentres in Glasgow in communities they had never visited.

Mr Hinds represents East Hampshire a constituency in the far south of England that is made up of small and very affluent towns.

At weekends in his constituency he is in splendid rural English isolation, far from the lives of those in Glasgow his decisions affect.

Geographically, East Hampshire is 433 miles away but socially and demographically it is worlds apart from Glasgow.

The problems experienced in Glasgow are alien to the vast majority of Mr Hinds’ constituents.

One of the largest towns, Alton, has suffered some job losses in recent years in the brewing and insurance industries but it has not had a lasting effect on the local economy and the area enjoys one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country.

While Glasgow has an unemployment rate of 7% with 20,000 people out of work, East Hampshire is 3.3%, which below the UK average with just 2000 unemployed.

In the Minister’s seat there are only 4,4330 people claiming out of work benefits compared to 81,000 in Scotland’s largest city.

And the number of households in Glasgow where noone is in a job is 54,000 in East Hampshire the number is so small it is not recorded in the official statistics.

The number of children in Glasgow living in a workless household is one in four again in East Hampshire, it’s too small to be significant.

The closest he has come to Glasgow is a visit to government offices in Edinburgh.

Last week he visited Scotland’s capital to meet with the Scottish Government Employment Minister, Jamie Hepburn.

Afterwards he visited a Jobcentre in Musselburgh.

He could have travelled west and visited Easterhouse, one of the seven marked out for closure.

The distance, using the DWP’s favoured system of measurement, google maps, is 42 miles and it would have taken him one hour and 13 minutes.

The trip would have taken less time than it took our reporter to travel from Maryhill Jobcentre to Springburn Jobcentre, which on the day we

tested the route took one hour and 14 minutes.

Stewart McDonald, SNP MP for Glasgow South, where two jobcentres are planned to close, Castlemilk and Langside said it was disgraceful Mr Hinds had not visited.

He said: “It is a brass neck to make a decision of such magnitude and not only not visit when asked several times by MPs is galling.

“It is what people have come to

expect but he needs to face the people who will be affected. It will be awkward for him but it is what he needs to do.”

Alison Thewliss, Glasgow Central MP which includes Bridgeton has written to the minister asking for him to visit the city, to meet people and also meet the Evening Times, to discuss our Hands Off Our Jobcentres campaign.

Natalie McGarry whose Glasgow East constituency includes Parkhead