Disability Benefits and Social Care

Debate between Maria Miller and Geraint Davies

Wednesday 20th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

My hon. Friend makes some important points, and we will ensure that support is in place for people affected by the announcements we are making. But what we are about is supporting thousands more disabled people into mainstream employment, and we have clear support for our approach from disabled people and from disabled people’s organisations.

Given that they had to be reminded, the Opposition seem to have forgotten that they closed 29 of these factories. The difference is that when they did that, little attempt was made to find any alternative buyers. Worse, the then Chief Secretary to the Treasury did nothing to put in place a comprehensive support package for those made redundant. Perhaps that is why so many Labour Members know that in their own constituencies many of the people affected by the previous redundancies did not get back into work, and perhaps Labour Members should hold their previous Chief Secretary to account for that. We should contrast that with the £8 million package of support that this Government are putting in place. That shows the importance that we attach to the measure.

[Geraint Davies]

Would the Minister not agree that the previous Government set aside £500 million specifically to support the modernisation of Remploy factories, not to do something else on access to work? She is saying, “We will raid all that money that was for those factories where modernisation was a success and we will put it somewhere else because we judge it to be more successful.” It is all very well saying that we should have support for access to work, which I agree with, but that money was meant for a purpose. It is being robbed out of the hands of Remploy workers, and they will not get another job in the current conditions.

[Maria Miller]

The hon. Gentleman just has to face the fact that at the end of the modernisation plan, which we are approaching, decisions will have to be made. Given the fiscal problems we faced when we came into government—the devastating state the country’s finances were in—we could well have made some very different decisions, but we chose not to do so. We chose to stick with Labour’s plan to modernise Remploy, and it has turned out that we had £65 million of losses last year and it still costs more than £20,000 to employ somebody in a Remploy factory. We simply cannot allow that to go on. What we want to do is ensure that that money is working harder. Indeed, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill would have had to take the same decision.

--- Later in debate ---

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I will be brief. I was out of the Chamber earlier because I was in the Welsh Grand Committee.

People working in Remploy in particular, but also the disabled community generally, feel very much that they have been kicked in the teeth. They feel as if they are having to pay the price for the mistakes of the bankers. We all know that we had a deficit, but we also know that two thirds of it was caused by bankers, with the other third caused by the previous Administration investing more than they were earning at the time to keep growth going—and being successful in that. Now we have got zero growth and the deficit is going up.

[Maria Miller]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Geraint Davies]

No, I will not give way. I do not have time.

Let me turn to Remploy, which was set up after the war. When I started becoming actively involved with my local Remploy factory about a year ago, the orders it was receiving were not high enough. I went round to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, the local health service, the local university, and so on, and now the factory is working flat out, getting more and more orders. That just shows that if the central command in Remploy were more effective, the factories could be successful and could work.

As for the finances, yes, the previous Government closed 29 factories, but they also left a legacy of £500 million to modernise and reinvest. However, we now find that the residue of that—about £320 million—is being put elsewhere. It might be used to get people with disabilities into mainstream work, but that mainstream work does not exist, because of record unemployment and record numbers of people in part-time work, and we now have the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill, which will enable employers to get rid of people who are weaker without tribunals and all the rest of it. It all stinks, to be honest.

In regard to the financial literacy of the arrangements, the average subsidy has dropped from £25,000 to £20,000, and it costs £10,000 in lost tax and benefits to put a normal person on the dole. Lord Layard has just produced a report on the cost of unemployment in terms of mental health, and it is clear that people in Remploy will end up with other difficulties that will put an enormous cost on the health service. There will be no real economic benefit at all.

Alongside that, there is uncertainty about the pension fund, the factories and the assets. The Welsh Government have, in good faith, offered to take over the factories. They have said, “We’ll have the subsidies if you let us use the factories and make this work. Let us use procurement positively and smartly to make it work.” Of course, the offer has been turned down, because success in Wales would illustrate that similar success could have been achieved in England, and the Government do not want to see themselves failing. This is just a case of asset stripping of the most vulnerable people in our society, and it stinks.

Remploy

Debate between Maria Miller and Geraint Davies

Thursday 15th December 2011 Westminster Hall

[Maria Miller]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. We have met on several occasions to discuss the issue. There are examples of areas where there can be success. Indeed, the hon. Member for Swansea West has walked the talk and made sure that the procurement issue has been uppermost in his local authority’s mind, and he has been very successful in that regard. There are opportunities for success, but the problem is that that success is not across the board.

I have already confirmed that the amount of money going into specialist disability employment is not the issue, because we have protected that pot of money. This is about ensuring that that money works hardest for disabled people. This is not about reducing funding; it is about using the money most effectively in whatever way that comes about. We have to consider those alternatives.

I have met Remploy trade union representatives on a number of occasions to discuss the matter. I have visited factories and listened to the views of employees, and I attended one of the consultation events in Reading in September. Let me restate that the Government’s commitment is to the five-year modernisation plan introduced in 2008. We are now in year four of that and those targets are not being met.

Last week, Remploy published independently audited annual reports and financial statements for 2010-11, which revealed that the Department for Work and Pensions spent £68.3 million supporting 2,200 disabled people in Remploy enterprise businesses at an annual cost of £25,000 per person. That is £5 million more than in 2009-10 and is more than 20% of the total budget available to help disabled people into work through the specialist employment budgets. We have to take a long hard look at the situation.

[Geraint Davies]

Does the Minister accept that there is a case for some job subsidy, even if it is as low as the amount that that person would otherwise be paid for unemployment benefit and health on-costs, or is she going to stick to her guns and say that there should be no subsidy and we should therefore make a loss to the Exchequer?

[Maria Miller]

The hon. Gentleman asks a very detailed question. He knows that we have not yet made the decision about the way forward. A significant amount of money is available to support disabled people. My hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne talked about the Access to Work programme, which he rightly said is exceptionally effective. The Sayce report clearly says that if decisions are made about the prioritisation of the available money, more money—significant amounts of money—could be yielded to support Access to Work. That could well be the sort of support that the hon. Gentleman’s constituents in Swansea West would want.