Remploy

Debate between Anne Begg and Stephen Lloyd

Thursday 15th December 2011 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)]

I thank the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) for securing the debate. It is interesting to note that when I saw the subject, I had a couple of conflicting thoughts. One thought was, “Stephen, if you speak in this, you can pretty much guarantee that it will be you against the massed ranks. Do you really want to do that considering that you have been an MP for a mere year and a half?” The other thought was, “You should contribute because you really believe that what you have to say is right.” I am glad to say that, in my judgment, I chose the latter.

It is a privilege to speak in this very important debate. I have been involved with the issue, on and off, for nigh on 19 years. I would like to tell the Chamber a little bit about Liz Sayce, who wrote the report. In the field of disability, Liz Sayce is held in tremendous respect and regard by both disabled and non-disabled disability consultants. I hope that even if the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley disagrees fundamentally with the review, she agrees that Liz Sayce knows of what she speaks with regard to disability. I have had the privilege of knowing her for many years.

I am fully aware that this is a debate against the closure of Remploy factories, but I want to take the opportunity to make the case for something I feel profoundly exercised about: supporting disabled people to realise their employment potential. An outsider might think that the Sayce review is solely about closing Remploy factories. In my judgment, it is not about that. It is about the future of disability employment support and making sure that the money is used where it makes a real difference to as many disabled people as possible. It is also about disabled people’s employment aspirations as well as, crucially, society’s attitude towards disabled people.

There is a story to be celebrated, which is that disabled people’s employment levels have risen significantly in recent years, especially among disabled graduates. I remember, years ago, campaigning for the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 when John Major was Prime Minister. Compared with where we were 15 years ago, where we are today might as well be a completely different planet. Disabled people have higher aspirations, are increasingly breaking through the job market, and are rightly becoming ever more visible in public life. The increase in support for disabled people, and new employment rights and changed attitudes towards disabled people have certainly helped.

Since 1994, Access to Work has helped tens of thousands of disabled people to get a job or stay in a job, despite its being called Whitehall’s best secret. At this juncture, I pay tribute—so that it will be in Hansard—to the enormous investment that the Labour Government put into Access to Work. Many years ago, I remember meeting the then Minister with responsibility for disability, the right hon. Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge); another former Minister is in the Chamber today—the right hon. Member for Stirling (Mrs McGuire), who I knew in my previous life. They put tremendous investment into Access to Work, for which I have always been very grateful.

The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 secured rights for disabled people to be free of discrimination. Those rights have been strengthened, most recently through the Equality Act 2010. Furthermore, the UN disability rights convention, signed and ratified by the UK Government, explicitly recognises the right of disabled people to work in open employment. Earlier this month, an organisation I know very well, the Employers’ Forum on Disability, celebrated 20 years of achievement and very hard work on behalf of disabled people. It supports its members, companies and organisations large and small to become disability confident, thus making it easier to recruit and retain disabled employees, and to serve disabled customers properly. Its members, and many other employers, are committed to breaking down barriers, because they recognise that it benefits them to tap into that huge pool of talent. They know that employees—disabled and non-disabled—function better in an environment where everybody is treated with respect, and where they get the support they need.

The EFD, and other organisations, know it is not the disability, but the person that matters—otherwise known as the social model of disability. My very good colleague, the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg), the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, has, like me, been campaigning for the social model for a long time. When I first started doing so with other disabled people, we were seen as if we were talking double Dutch. There is much greater understanding of the social model of disability today.

Despite that progress, 50% of disabled adults of working age remain unable to access paid work. This is 2011. What a shocking waste of talent and experience. The figure is probably even higher for certain disabilities, such as profoundly deaf British sign language users, and those with mental health issues and other specific disabilities.

[Dame Anne Begg]

I call the hon. Gentleman my hon. Friend because we have served on the Select Committee together. During the recent visit of the Committee to the Port Talbot-Neath Remploy, we met a group of pupils and a teacher from a local special school who were getting work experience in that factory—the only place where those youngsters could possibly get any kind of work experience. In the Aberdeen factory, the Remploy employment service is now in the factory, and the factory provides work experience places for people with disabilities. Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a role for the factories to help to support disabled people in obtaining experience that they can then use to access open employment, or other employment opportunities?

[Stephen Lloyd]

I thank my hon. Friend for that contribution. I agree entirely. Later on in my speech, I have a cunning plan about how Remploy could be better used, and that was a very good example.

There is a real need to step up the level of support available to disabled people, as well as tackling outdated and ignorant attitudes among career advisers and employers. I heard a good example only a couple of weeks ago. One of my constituents complained to me about the cost of fitting

“all these wheelchair ramps into shops.”

I agreed wholeheartedly on the proviso that rather than spending all that money providing, say, escalators for non-disabled people to use at underground stations, why do we not just chuck a rope over the edge so that they can climb up? I think I lost that chap’s vote, but there you go.

How best can we support disabled people into sustainable employment? That is the $64,000 question. The Sayce review makes a recommendation on how the coalition Government can use the £330 million budget for specialist disability employment support to help more disabled people into employment, and to help more effectively disabled people already in employment. This is the key: employment and retained employment. Currently, that budget is spent on Remploy, Access to Work and residential training colleges. To my mind, after years of studying these things, there are three key issues at stake: how our resources can be best used to help as many people as possible in the most effective way; whether disabled people should be supported in open employment or whether there is a place for sheltered employment; and how the future of current Remploy workers can best be protected.

On the first point, I offer some facts. We are spending five times as much on a Remploy worker as on a disabled person in open employment, yet with the right support, disabled people can have real careers—I know many disabled people who do—alongside their non-disabled peers in the open workplace. They are similarly skilled, similarly unskilled, similarly bright, and similarly less so. In fact, they are pretty similar to all of us here, but with different needs.

Social Security

Debate between Anne Begg and Stephen Lloyd

Thursday 17th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)]

It is nice to see such a large crowd of Members in the Chamber for this debate. I have attended benefits uprating debates for a number of years, and there are usually three people, possibly including one who really likes statistics, sitting somewhere on the Back Benches. As the Minister has suggested, the greater attendance this afternoon is probably a result of the fact that the entire basic indexation of the benefit system is about to change from RPI to CPI.

Benefits uprating orders are all or nothing orders; we cannot pick and choose what we want to be in them. There are bits that Labour Members are not particularly happy about, but we are happy with other bits, and if these orders do not get passed today no uprating will take place, which is the dilemma facing those of us who have concerns, particularly about the move from RPI to CPI for public sector pensions. I think I can speak on behalf of my party colleagues in saying that we will not vote against the motion, but neither will we necessarily vote for it. If the order does not pass, nobody gets anything, and we would not want that to happen.

The Minister is a very clever man, and I found his analysis fascinating. He gave a very clear and logical explanation of why CPI should be used as the inflation measure for indexation; everything fell into place, as we would expect from him. He said it is such a good measure that we are going to use it for public sector pensions, and, if we can get away with it, possibly for private sector pensions and occupational pensions. Apparently, it is so good that we are going to use it for everything except the basic state pension. I have no problem with the fact that the Government are increasing the basic state pension by more than the triple lock would have given, but this undermines the Minister’s logical argument as to why CPI is so good. My right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) picked up on this and I would like the Minister to explain his position. Why is the basic state pension going up by RPI, or 4.6%? CPI stood at 3.1% during the period; we are talking about last year’s inflation figures here.

I am also delighted that the Government have recognised the importance of pension credit, which was introduced by a Labour Government, and of keeping that increase in line with inflation. Under the Labour Government, it was the pension credit element, rather than the basic state pension, that went up by the higher rate of indexation, because the Government wanted to narrow the gap between rich and poor pensioners and that was the easiest way to make sure the poorest pensioners got the most. Under this new uprating, however, pension credit is not going up by the 4.6% under RPI that the basic state pension is going up by. It is going up by only 3.6%, which is in line with neither CPI nor the triple lock. I am not quite sure where that figure has come from. I am not complaining that the uprating is not more than it should be, but perhaps it is less than the Minister was led to believe.

We can see from last year’s figures and the indexation that we are looking at a CPI of 3.1% and an RPI of 4.6%. That is one third less. Many people are concerned about the compounding effect of CPI over the years on their take-home pension.

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that even under CPI, because the coalition Government are linking it with earnings, that would be the equivalent over a full term of an additional £15,000 to someone’s pension pot?

[Dame Anne Begg]

But that is assuming that the only income that pensioners have is the basic state pension, which is not the case. Most pensioners supplement the basic state pension with an occupational pension or, if they worked in the public sector, with a public sector pension. That is where the Government have sometimes missed a trick. In obsessing about the triple lock and the basic state pension, they have taken their eye off the ball with regard to all other pension income.

Because other pension income will be reduced as a result of the link with CPI, many pensioners will find themselves worse off, or certainly not as well off as they expected or as the rhetoric from the Government would suggest. To listen to the Government, one would think they are doing everything that pensioners ever wanted, whereas they have taken action only on the narrow area of the basic state pension.

We already know that inflation is going up. VAT went up, thanks to the Chancellor. The Opposition expect inflation to go up much further because we do not think the Chancellor has the right policies. We know from the most recent inflation figures for January this year that CPI is now up to 4%—good news, one would think, for pensioners—but RPI is up to 5%. It is that differential that will cause problems.

We are considering not just pensions, but uprating for the whole benefits system. Even the Minister must recognise that there is an enormous irony in using CPI to uprate housing benefit—CPI being the one inflation measure that does not include housing costs, notwithstanding the point that the hon. Member for Cardiff Central (Jenny Willott) made about the poorest people being in social housing. That is not the case in cities such as London, and it is not the case because of the shortage of housing.

We know that large numbers of people are dependent on housing benefit—or, more accurately, local housing allowance—and they will be hit. When the Select Committee on Work and Pensions looked into the matter, we thought there were some figures to show that within a very short time nobody on housing benefit would be able to afford houses in the private rented sector that fit into the 30th percentile.