(10 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberI welcome my hon. Friend’s question, and join him in congratulating Charlotte Edwards and her team on doing what the men could not do.
Further to Question 11, would it not be sensible to give councils the power to say that there must be no more gambling shops in their areas because saturation point has been reached? That would not mean stopping gambling shops per se; it would merely impose a limit which does not exist in planning legislation at present, whatever the Minister may think.
(12 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberOf the 54 existing Remploy factories, how many does the Minister expect still to be running at the end of this Parliament, whether they are called Remploy or go under another name?
The hon. Gentleman will know that we are in the middle of a commercial process, and therefore I do not know the answer to his question. However, I hope that as a result of the work being done we can, as Liz Sayce’s recommendations suggest, set those factories free from Government control. I remind him of the comments made by the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain) back in November 2007:
“The reality is that without modernisation Remploy deficits would obliterate our other programmes to help disabled people into mainstream work.”—[Official Report, 29 November 2007; Vol. 468, c. 448.]
We agree with that statement.