Oral Answers to Questions

Anne McGuire Excerpts

Monday 10th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her question. We have worked on the issue immediately. Straight away, she will be pleased to know that everybody affected will have their redundancy pay and, therefore, money. She is right to say that a 50% emergency taxation rate was put on that. We have spoken to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and to the personal caseworkers they will all get, who will help them fill in the forms and get the money back as soon as possible. I thank the right hon. Lady for highlighting that issue.

[Mrs Anne McGuire (Stirling) (Lab)]

First, I welcome the hon. Lady to her post and wish her well. She has a very special role as a champion for disabled people both outside and, perhaps more importantly at times, inside Government.

The hon. Lady wrote to her local paper about her local Remploy factory in Birkenhead and was highly critical of management and very supportive of, in effect, a workers buy-out. Now that she is in a position to make a real difference, will she consider halting the current Remploy programme in order to allow workers throughout the rest of the country to benefit from a workers buy-out, which is the very policy that she supports?

[Esther McVey]

I visited my local Remploy factory and met its workers, and I was hugely impressed with them. I was horrified to find out what had and had not happened with their proposed business plan, so I pursued the matter. The automotive industry on Merseyside was expanding at the time—we now have 24-hour work at Jaguar in Halewood and Vauxhall has been saved—and I thought that something could be done. That did not happen and I tried to get to the bottom of it—I was most disappointed with the management and that is on the record. What we are looking for is viable businesses, which we will support in every which way we can. I am also meeting various disability groups to consider the shape of the Remploy business in the 21st century and what we can do. I will be a champion for disabled people and I am looking at future job opportunities for them.