Future of Specialist Disability Employment

Baroness Turner of Camden Excerpts

Tuesday 10th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Turner of Camden]

My Lords, the Minister will not be surprised that I protest about the decisions which have been made in relation to Remploy, because I have raised the issue previously in debate in this House. He will be aware, of course, that the unions representing their members in Remploy have already protested very strongly against the decisions that have been taken.

Although I understand what the Minister says about it being much better for workers to work with other people and not to be segregated, for many people segregated employment is the only work available and appropriate for them, particularly in the neighbourhoods in which they live. The local siting of Remploy factories is very important.

I believe that the decision has been taken on a number of grounds, not necessarily in favour of the individual workers. There is an ideological attitude here on the part of the Government, who prefer privatisation to publicly owned enterprises. This was a publicly owned enterprise, a government enterprise, which everyone felt for many years was entirely successful. Many of the workers do not seem to have the organisation to effectively protest, although apparently they all belong to unions.

There is also the question of the people who supervise these workers. Supervising disabled people often requires a great deal more skill than supervising in ordinary circumstances, and the people concerned are trained to deal with the disabled people for whom they are responsible.

This is an entirely bad decision. I challenged it when I understood that it was in the process of consultation, and the unions protested at the time. I very much regret that the Government have taken this decision. As my noble friend on the Front Bench said, I hope there will be an opportunity for reconsideration, because there should be reconsideration. This is an important matter to the people who are directly involved, and I would like to protest on their behalf.

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, the first claim of the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, about segregated employment being the only employment available, is undermined somewhat by the fact that many of the jobs provided by Remploy Employment Services are in the areas where the factories are situated. Indeed it is having a great deal of success in getting jobs for disabled people in non-segregated employment—I think that the figure is roughly 12,000 jobs in those areas in the past few years. Clearly it is tough to get jobs for disabled people but Remploy Employment Services’ remarkable performance shows how, with the right strategies and policies, one can be successful in getting people into non-segregated employment—which is, of course, our central strategy.

I do not think that the noble Baroness really believes that this is an ideological public/private issue. It is about segregated and non-segregated employment and trying to spread money as efficiently as possible among the disabled community. When you compare an operation which lost £70 million in 2010-11 and cost £25,000 year-on-year for each worker supported with Access to Work’s one-off investment, in many cases, of just under £3,000 to help people into non-segregated employment, you have to take these basic value-for-money considerations into account. I therefore commend this approach, which is being done with great concern and care for the individual workers involved, as a far better way of spending our budget for disabled people in work.