Disability Benefits and Social Care

Liam Byrne Excerpts

Wednesday 20th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House believes that cuts to support for disabled people and carers pose a potential risk to their dignity and independence and will have wider social and economic costs; regrets that the Department for Work and Pensions has dropped the aim of achieving disability equality; whilst recognising that the disability living allowance (DLA) needs to be reformed, expresses concern that taking the DLA from 500,000 disabled people and contributory employment and support allowance from 280,000 former workers will take vital financial support from families under pressure; expresses further concern at the Work Programme’s failure to help disabled people and the mismanaged closure of Remploy factories; notes the pressing need for continuing reform to the work capability assessment (WCA) to reduce the human cost of wrong decisions; agrees with the eight Carers’ Week charities on the importance of recognising the huge contribution made by the UK’s 6.4 million carers and the need to support carers to prevent caring responsibilities pushing them into ill-health, poverty and isolation; and calls on the Government to ensure reform promotes work, independence, quality of life and opportunities for disabled people and their families, to restore the commitment to disability equality in the Department for Work and Pensions’ business plan, to conduct a full impact assessment of the combined effects of benefit and social care cuts on disabled people and carers, to reform WCA descriptors as suggested by charities for mental health, fluctuating conditions and sensory impairment and to re-run the consultation on the future of Remploy factories.

Once upon a time, the Conservatives liked to tell us that we were all in this together. Those words ring rather hollow today. After a Budget that gave us the granny tax and cuts to tax credits while giving a tax cut to millionaires, I think we can assume that the Chancellor was simply taking us for a ride. Yesterday, Bob Holman—the man who introduced the Secretary of State to Easterhouse—said it all. He said that he now had so much confidence in the Secretary of State’s belief that we were all in it together that he thought the Secretary of State should resign. Today’s debate is about many of the people Mr Holman stood up for. They are the one in four of our fellow citizens who are not all in it together with the Chancellor and the Prime Minister. They are not part of the Chipping Norton set. They do not get to go to the kitchen suppers. They are Britain’s disabled citizens. They are parents of disabled children. They are former workers, now disabled, who have paid in and paid their stamp and now find a Government determined to renege on a deal that they believed in.

In today’s debate on what I hope will be a consensual motion, there will be interventions from those on the Treasury Bench asking which cuts the Opposition support, and that is a perfectly reasonable line of argument. Let me deal with it at the outset. We do not believe that the spending review set out by this Government was wise. We warned of the risks of cutting too far and too fast. We also warned of the risks of a double-dip recession, and now we have one. The cost is astronomical. That is why the Chancellor had to explain to the House, in his last Budget, that he had to borrow £150 billion more than the Office for Budget Responsibility said Labour would have borrowed, as set out in our last Budget. In the Department for Work and Pensions, the bill for jobseeker’s allowance and housing benefit is now running out of control as a consequence of the Secretary of State’s failure to get people back into work, and £9 billion more than was originally forecast is now projected to be spent. Someone has to pay that bill, and the Government—the Cabinet and those on the Front Bench today—have decided that it should be paid by Britain’s disabled people.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman has mentioned the disabled. Will he explain why Labour supports segregated employment—apartheid for the disabled—in Remploy? Are the disabled community not full members of society too?

[Mr Byrne]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, and I will talk about Remploy at length later in my speech. I hope that he will intervene on me again at that stage.

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

Welfare reform is long overdue. Will the shadow Minister explain why, when his party was in government, it did not get to grips with this matter? On disability living allowance payments, for example, there was a complete lack of transparency regarding where the money was heading. The previous Labour Government had plenty of opportunity to reform welfare, but they failed to do so. Will he explain why?

[Mr Byrne]

The Labour Government introduced some of the biggest reforms of the welfare system that we have ever seen in this country. That is why Lord Freud, in his review of the changes that we had made, said that the progress that had been made was “remarkable”. The hon. Gentleman would do well to study his remarks.

I want to return to the point about who is to pay the bill for this Government’s failure. Every Chancellor, every Cabinet and every Government have to make a decision on how the load is to be carried. The point at the heart of this debate is that this Government have decided that much of the load must be carried by Britain’s disabled people. New research from the House of Commons Library, which I am publishing today, shows that over the course of this Parliament, disabled people in our country will pay more than Britain’s bankers. Indeed, in the final year of the Parliament, disabled people will be paying 40% more than the banks. That tells us everything we need to know about this Government’s values.

The House should be grateful to Carers UK, and to the eight carers week charities, for the service they have done us by setting out the combined impact of these decisions. Their conclusion is blunt:

“It is a scandal that the UK’s carers are being let down in this way.”

The situation that confronts us is not going to get better; it is going to get worse. Scope reminds us that universal credit—if it is ever introduced—will hit disabled people 30% harder than non-disabled households, and that the halving of support for disabled children will cut £1,300 from their families. The Government’s arbitrary 20% cut to disability living allowance risks plunging 500,000 families into a financial black hole.

[Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman is talking about the cuts; perhaps he will tell us how he would reform the budget. I believe that the Government’s reforms are very sensible. Will he also tell us how many Remploy factories were shut down while Labour was in power?

[Mr Byrne]

I invite the hon. Gentleman to intervene on me again when I talk about Remploy in more detail—[Interruption.] No, Remploy forms an important part of our motion, and it is right that we should have an informed debate on the matter. I assure the hon. Gentleman that I will let him have his say at that stage.

We believe that disability living allowance needs reform, and that an independent assessment is needed. We also believe, however, that the assessment should be designed first, and that the savings should be calculated afterwards. This Government have set an arbitrary, top-down financial cut, and they are now scrambling around trying to figure out what kind of assessment will deliver that cut. So little thought has gone into this that disabled people now face being tested for employment and support allowance, DLA and social care, as well as for a raft of other benefits. The testing alone will cost the taxpayer £710 million.

Surely we should be thinking harder about this. Surely we should be trying to determine what is the right assessment for DLA and ESA—which are different benefits—and asking how we can bring them together in a way that would be more convenient for disabled people and that would help them to secure the support that they need to live an independent life. Such a reform would save money. Indeed, when I was at the Treasury, my civil servants costed it and determined that it would save £350 million by 2015.

To this bleak picture we must, I am afraid, add more. Cuts to social care and to housing benefit will make the situation worse, £1 billion has now been cut from local council budgets for social care since this Government took office, and Ministers are still dragging their feet over long-term reform. Meanwhile, 1 million unpaid carers have given up work or reduced their hours, and four in 10 have fallen into debt, thanks to a system that does not work and is set to get worse.

[George Hollingbery (Meon Valley) (Con)]

I seem to recall that the Government announced some time ago that £3 billion would be transferred from national health service budgets to the social services sector each year. Is that correct, or is my recollection wrong?

[Mr Byrne]

The cut is from the Department for Communities and Local Government’s own figures. If the hon. Gentleman looks at the study published by the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, he will see the reality of what is hitting social care services up and down the country and the vulnerable people they support.

The great tragedy of this story is that there might be some kind of explanation if this were all part of a grand master-plan to get disabled people back to work.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

I am a little intrigued. The right hon. Gentleman stood at the Dispatch Box at the beginning of his speech and said that we were not cutting housing benefit enough. Labour let it run out of control; it nearly doubled in 10 years. The outturn, however, is that we will be spending £3 billion less than Labour would have done under their proposals. Now, however, he is saying that we are cutting housing benefit too much. He needs to make his mind up. He cannot have it both ways. Are we cutting it too much or too little?

[Mr Byrne]

This deserves better than a debating point from the Secretary of State. The fact that this Government have strangled the recovery—[Interruption.] Would the Secretary of State like to come to the Dispatch Box and repeat that?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The shadow Secretary of State should make his mind up about what he is really saying. Half his Front-Bench team have been going around saying that we are socially cleansing London because we are being too fierce on housing benefit tenants, and he goes around telling us that we are not cutting enough. It is pathetic.

[Mr Byrne]

I am grateful that the Secretary of State decided to temper his language, in contrast to the crass words that he used from a sedentary position.

The truth is that the housing benefit bill is spiralling out of control because this Government have strangled the recovery and put unemployment up to its highest level since 1996. There are now more than 1 million young people out of work, and long-term unemployment is up 10%. A third of the people on the dole have now been out of work for more than a year, because of the catastrophic failure of the Secretary of State’s back-to-work programme. That is why the dole bill and the housing benefit bill are going up. He should be ashamed of the record that he has presided over.

[Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)]

And all that from the gentleman who left us the note to say that there was no money left! Would he like to correct a statement he made earlier? This Government have already recognised that some of the eligibility criteria and some of the testing will need to be changed. They have stated that they are open to those changes, so will he correct his statement on the record?

[Mr Byrne]

I will believe it when I see it. As for the fiscal position, the hon. Gentleman will know that the Chancellor had to confess to the House that he was borrowing £150 billion more than would have been needed under Labour’s plans.

The truth is that there is no plan to get disabled people back to work. The reform of ESA is being so botched that 40% of people are winning their appeals, and those appeals are costing us £50 million a year. Charity after charity is saying that the descriptors used in the work capability assessment are failing. This is the point about reform: if we introduce changes, we have to adapt. We have to be flexible, and move as we learn. This Government are not doing anything. The charity Mind has so little confidence in the Government’s ability to get the reforms right that it has resigned from the advisory group. The Royal National Institute for the Blind has told me that someone who is totally blind can be found fit for work and put straight on to jobseeker’s allowance. That is why our motion, which I hope the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) will support, calls for the right reform of the work capability assessment.

Comments reported in The Guardian say that the Secretary of State has been warned by his civil servants running job centres that people are being pushed to suicide by the botched reforms of employment and support allowance—a system that costs us £50 million a year and in which 40% of people are winning their appeals. How can that reform be right?

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Byrne]

Perhaps the hon. Lady can tell us.

[Harriett Baldwin]

Would the shadow Secretary of State like to remind us who was the Chief Secretary to the Treasury when the work capability assessment was introduced and who it was that refused to listen to the arguments of the disability lobby to improve that test? This Government brought in the Harrington review, and they are implementing it.

[Mr Byrne]

Actually, Mr Harrington was appointed by the previous Government. The reform of ESA is right, but the point about reform is that we need to adapt and show flexibility. What the House needs to know this afternoon is that charities such as Mind have so little confidence in the Government’s ability to get it right that they are resigning from the process. I put it to the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) that that is not a vote of confidence.

[Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend share my view that the interventions of Conservative Members so far, in seeking to make cheap political points, do not represent at all the view of organisations for disabled people? Sense, for example, which speaks for deafblind people, said:

“We still remain very concerned by the overall aim of reducing the future DLA spend by over £1 billion.”

Are those not the worries that the House should be addressing?

[Mr Byrne]

Those are precisely the kinds of worries that the House should reflect on because this is a very difficult and sensitive area of policy. The Government are not attempting to prosecute reform with any kind of consensus at all. That is why charities are resigning and resiling from their administration.

To the picture of ESA reform, I am afraid we have to add the Work programme. Once billed as the greatest back-to-work programme designed by human hand it is now missing its target for disabled people by 60%. Charity after charity says that the number of people referred to them for specialist help to get back to work is minuscule and tiny. St Mungo’s and now the Single Homeless Project have even gone to the lengths of resigning from the programme altogether.

This Government’s contempt is not reserved for disabled people without a job. There is plenty of it to go around for people with a job, including those Remploy workers in factories to whom the Secretary of State said, “You don’t produce very much at all. They are not doing any work at all. They are just making cups of coffee.” I hope that, in the course of this debate, the Secretary of State will take the opportunity to resign—I mean apologise. [Interruption.] I may not give way to calls on that point, but I congratulate the Sunday Express on its campaign, highlighting the disgraceful treatment of Remploy workers. We all know that Remploy has to change—that is the point I would make to Conservative Members—but this Government have decided to press ahead, closing these factories at breakneck speed. These factories are in constituencies where twice as many people as the national average are chasing every single job. How can it be right to say to these factories that they have until Monday to complete a business plan that, if it is not successful, will see the closure of factories in communities that need jobs and cannot afford to lose them?

[Paul Maynard]

Let me give the right hon. Gentleman another chance to answer the question put to him earlier. How many of these factories were closed under the last Labour Government? I know what the figure is; I wonder whether he knows what it is.

[Mr Byrne]

I will not deny the fact that a number of factories were closed under Labour, but that was part of a reform programme that saw £500 million added in support for the future of Remploy. The point for the House this afternoon is this: the time given to help Remploy factories figure out a future is too short.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree with my constituent Christine Tyleman who wrote on behalf of the workers at the Spennymoor Remploy factory:

“I would be lost if I was not working. You cannot live on fresh air”?

In my constituency, the ratio is 9:1 of jobseekers to vacancies. Does my right hon. Friend agree that my constituent is completely realistic in her assessment of her situation?

[Mr Byrne]

My hon. Friend makes a very powerful point. For many Remploy workers, their place of work is more than simply a job; it is a community and it is vital to their life and well-being. In a community like my hon. Friend’s, where nine people are chasing every job, these people deserve real answers about a sustainable future.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that Remploy gives disabled people the dignity of work. It has been shown that, without that, both their mental and physical health suffers, with all the problems that result from it.

[Mr Byrne]

Of course. My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have seen reports today, debated in the media and in the House, about the pressure that the national health service is now coming under. When we drag and cut away support such as work and other vital benefits, people will, frankly, be thrown on the mercies of the health service—a health service that we know is terribly overstretched.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that after closures like this, people often end up on benefits? In my constituency, a Blindcraft factory, not Remploy, was closed by the then Lib Dem council. The majority of the people who worked there have not been found jobs in the wider economy, which would have been desirable, and they are back to being unemployed and sitting around at home.

[Mr Byrne]

My hon. Friend makes my point for me. When the reform of ESA and back-to-work programmes such as the Work programme are failing so badly, shutting these factories down without providing real answers about their future will, I am afraid, have terrible consequences in communities all over the country.

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

My right hon. Friend says that Remploy must change, which it must, but in Swansea it has been changing. In fact, the order books are—partly owing to my own engagement with major possible local clients—virtually full with increasing orders from universities, the private sector, health authorities and so forth, even when the Remploy central sales and marketing function has dismally failed. In view of the fact that, given a helping hand, Remploy can succeed, does my right hon. Friend agree that it is outrageous for the Secretary of State to make out that these people do not work and sit around drinking coffee? Should the Secretary of State not at the very least apologise—and if not, resign?

[Mr Byrne]

I very much hope that the Secretary of State will apologise shortly. I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. What we need all over the country is leadership, ensuring that work continues in these factories.

[Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab)]

Eleven people are chasing every single job in my constituency, and there is no point in the Secretary of State going to Merthyr to tell people to get on a bus to Cardiff because there are no jobs in Cardiff either. After the last round of redundancies in the Remploy factory in the Cynon Valley in 1988, only one man ever found a job again. With unemployment now running at 9% in my constituency, I ask the Secretary of State again: where are the jobs? Tell us: where are the jobs for disabled people?

[Paul Maynard]

rose—

[Mr Byrne]

My right hon. Friend speaks powerfully. This underlines the importance of a series of tests that the Government must pass on Remploy. I shall come to that, but I give way for the last time to the hon. Gentleman.

[Paul Maynard]

I am listening carefully and I promise not to intervene again. Will the right hon. Gentleman clarify something for me? Is he arguing that disabled people should not be expected to be able to work in the wider workplace? The implications of that are a lowering of the expectations of the disabled community and suggest that all we all are fit for is to have a label placed around our necks and then be put out of sight and out of mind? Is that really what he is suggesting?

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[Mr Byrne]

No, that is not my argument at all. My argument is very simple: disabled people have the same right to a job as everyone else, but at present the choice of where to work is being taken from many of them.

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

When I visited the Edinburgh Remploy factory, the workers were not having coffee, but working hard and bringing in new business. Unfortunately, however, that is one of the factories that is due to be closed. In Edinburgh, where five unemployed people are chasing each vacancy, every single job is important. Would it not be better to take the best possible advantage of successful Remploy factories by building on what they have done so far, rather than throwing them on to the scrapheap as the Government are suggesting?

[Mr Byrne]

Exactly. Workers in Remploy factories are doing a good, proper job of work, and the least that they deserve is a Government who are serious about giving them a future in work.

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

Trentham Lakes Remploy factory in my constituency, which serves the very deprived area of north Staffordshire, is doing fantastic work for companies such as JCB, and is also working for the DWP in fulfilling contracts. Some of its workers have tried working in the outside environment during better times, but they have returned because they need not a separated environment, but a supported environment. Will my right hon. Friend pay tribute to the hard work that is done by people in places such as Trentham Lakes?

[Mr Byrne]

Let me echo my hon. Friend’s comment immediately. I do pay tribute to the work of people in Remploy factories, and I hope that the whole House will support that sentiment this afternoon.

[Anas Sarwar (Glasgow Central) (Lab)]

I met an inspirational young man in my constituency, Martin Dougan, who is now working as a sports presenter for Channel 4 News and ESPN. He told me that he had only found the confidence to take the job because of the support given to him by an assisted workplace employer. Does that not demonstrate the huge benefits that disabled people can enjoy if they are given the right support?

[Mr Byrne]

That is absolutely true. Disabled people need to be given the choice of work, and they need to be given a real future in Remploy factories when that is their choice.

[Stephen Hammond]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way again. He is being very generous with his time. I assume that he will accept, in the interests of accuracy, that the level of the overall specialist disability employment budget is to remain at £320 million, and that in the last two years the Government have increased the Access to Work budget. I think that Members in all parts of the House accept Access to Work.

[Mr Byrne]

What concerns me is where the savings from Remploy will go, and the fact that Access to Work is currently underperforming. That is the point that has been made to me by charity after charity.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Maria Miller)]

The right hon. Gentleman will of course know that the £320 million specialist employment support budget is protected, and that any money coming from Remploy will be reinvested in it.

[Mr Byrne]

That is an important commitment, but I am afraid that it will be cold comfort to the workers in Remploy factories where business plans must be submitted by Monday if their future is to be ensured.

[Mr Frank Roy (Motherwell and Wishaw) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend will know that the Wishaw Remploy factory is earmarked for closure. We have learned that article 19 public service contracts will be available to many Remploy factories, but it has now emerged that Remploy has not even contacted the local authorities to ask them about article 19. Is that not shameful?

[Mr Byrne]

It is shameful, but I am afraid that it is par for the course. After all, that announcement was smuggled out on a very busy day in the House. I believe that the Minister was forced to come to the House at the end of the business to make a statement that she should have been upfront about making.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Byrne]

I will give way once more, and then set out a number of principles of which I think the Government should approve.

[Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

I am touched by the right hon. Gentleman’s concern for Remploy employees. I think that it is a good concern. Will he confirm, however, that the Labour Government presided over the closure of 28 Remploy factories?

[Mr Byrne]

That was part of a reform programme that included £500 million for modernisation. This is the point. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman is missing it. The argument that we are prosecuting this afternoon is not about whether Remploy needs to change. Remploy does need to change, but is now the right time for it do so, given that long-term unemployment is approaching 1 million? Where are the real plans to ensure that these factories have a future?

[Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

We are engaged in a consultation that has been taking place over a particularly difficult period. During the council elections, it was very difficult for councils to become engaged in the process, and in the course of the consultation the Department changed the terms that were available to staff and prospective purchasers. Will the Secretary of State recognise that businesses need a reasonable length of time in which to consider the facts, and will the Minister confirm that she has considered whether the decision may be legally challengeable?

[Mr Byrne]

Let me deal with my hon. Friend’s intervention by listing a series of practical measures and steps that I think that the Government could and should now take.

First, why do the Government not honour every letter of the Sayce report? Why do they not honour the recommendations of Liz Sayce that factories should have six months in which to develop a business plan and two years before a subsidy is withdrawn, that the viability of Remploy factories should be decided by an independent panel of business and enterprise experts—with trade union involvement—rather than by unilateral action from the DWP, and that expert entrepreneurial and business support should be provided to develop the businesses into independent enterprises? Each of those recommendations needs to be implemented.

Secondly—here I come to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas)—the full 90-day timetable for consultation should be re-started, given that the terms were radically changed halfway through the process.

Thirdly—this is relevant to the points that have been made about procurement—may I ask what steps the Secretary of State has taken to draw together local authorities, as well as central Government Departments, to ensure that any extra work that can be put in a Remploy factory is put in a Remploy factory? Surely we should be exhausting all those opportunities before we move on.

Fourthly, we should take a more flexible approach to each and every factory. The fact is that some factories will need more support in order to continue, while others will need less. And fifthly, we should review the subsidy per worker offered to Remploy workers, given that it may be different from the subsidy that is available under Work Choice.

If the Secretary of State is in any doubt about what these factories do, I will go and do a day’s work in a Remploy factory, and I hope that he will join me. I think that we should invite the Sunday Express as well, for good measure.

[George Hollingbery]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for being so generous with his time.

The subsidies involved in the two separate programmes, the Access to Work programme and the social model and Remploy, are not just different but wildly different. The average subsidy per person in Remploy is £25,000 a year, whereas the average subsidy in the support programme is £2,900 a year. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it would be much better for the money from Remploy to be redeployed in the Access to Work programme?

[Mr Byrne]

Where are the jobs that those people are going to go into? When factories are closing in constituencies where the average number of people chasing each job is twice the national average and the Work programme is failing disabled people, we have a problem that needs to be solved. We need practical steps to manage Remploy’s future.

Labour Members feel passionate about this subject. We are proud of the progress that we made for disabled people when we were in government. We appointed the first ever Minister for Disabled People, and we introduced the Disability Discrimination Act 2005, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Supporting People, the new deal for disabled people, new strategies for disabled children, Valuing People, and the Equality Act. Poverty in disabled households fell by a fifth in the last three years of our Government.

We succeeded because we believed in co-producing policy with disabled people. It is a disgrace that Kaliya Franklin, Sue Marsh and the authors of the Spartacus report had to use freedom of information requests to draw out of the Government that the DWP’s response to the DLA consultation was so misleading. It is also a disgrace that the Government have dropped from their business plan the goal of securing equality for disabled people. They should now set about changing course. They should begin by introducing a combined, cross-governmental assessment of the impact of their reforms. I congratulate Scope on producing a “starter for 10” this week.

Labour Members believe that rights should be made a reality for disabled people. We will campaign for that justice throughout this Parliament and beyond, and I hope that the House will express its support by backing our motion this afternoon.

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[Maria Miller]

The right hon. Gentleman does a huge amount of work in this area, and I would not want to fall out with him. I know that we both believe that disabled people should be looked at as individuals, and that he does a lot of work to make that a reality. I do not want to categorise people simply because of a condition they have. People deal with their conditions in different ways. That is what the personal independence payment is all about. I hope we can continue to work on this matter with the right hon. Gentleman, and with many outside organisations, because we need to put right the previous Government’s failure to introduce any reforms.

Let me dispel some of the other myths we have heard, starting with those about Remploy. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill knows full well that the programme Labour put in place was unsustainable, with more than £250 million in factory losses since its modernisation programme began. Labour set the unachievable target of a 130% increase in Remploy’s public sector sales in 2008, when the right hon. Gentleman, as Chief Secretary to the Treasury at around that time, must have known public sector spending was set to fall. Under Labour, very few additional contracts were won, and what is particularly shameful is that all this did nothing more than give people false hope. The modernisation plan was designed to turn factories around through a £550 million investment, yet it now still costs more than £20,000 to employ an individual in a Remploy factory and losses last year alone amounted to £65 million.

[Mr Byrne]

How many meetings has the Minister had with central Government Departments and local authorities to try to find new contracts for Remploy factories?

[Maria Miller]

The right hon. Gentleman knows that my predecessors and I have put a great deal of effort into looking for ways to get work into Remploy factories. He also knows that the DWP has awarded business to Remploy factories.

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[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.

[Mr Byrne]

The Minister has told the House:

“We want to make sure that Remploy factories are successful in the future.”—[Official Report, 18 July 2011; Vol. 531, c. 599.]

What exactly did she mean then?

[Maria Miller]

The right hon. Gentleman knows exactly what I meant: our very clear commitment is to work at ensuring that those factories can be set free from Government control. That is absolutely what we are doing. We are spending a great deal of time—we started in March—on the process for expressions of interest. We have received more than 60 such expressions in respect of factories throughout the country—I believe we have now received about 65—many of which have gone forward to business plans. We hope that many more will go forward successfully. That is my aim, and it is why we are taking time to do this and taking the time to talk to Labour Members about this issue.

Labour Members need to wake up to what is happening in their constituencies. The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) intervened during the speech by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill, and I should gently remind her that although there are, importantly, 41 disabled people working in the factory in her constituency, many, many more are not receiving that support. Yet, through employment services, we were able to support more than 500 individuals into mainstream employment, not into segregated factories. So I would rather take the £740,000 loss on the factory in her constituency last year and use the money to support the individuals in that factory into mainstream employment, so that we can actually have the sort of world that my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys has been talking about.

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[Maria Miller]

The right hon. Lady is obviously a little sensitive on that point, perhaps because the fund was about to run out of money when we took over. We had absolutely no choice at all about the action we took and perhaps Labour Members should take a little more of the responsibility. They lost control of the situation for some of the most vulnerable groups in society and they must stand up and be accountable account for that.

[Mr Byrne]

By the end of the Parliament, nearly £3.5 billion will be cut from disability benefit yet only £2.5 billion net is being taken from Britain’s bankers. How can the Minister justify the disgraceful fact that the Government are taking more from disabled people than from bankers? Will she justify it now?

[Maria Miller]

The right hon. Gentleman should have taken that opportunity to apologise for writing the note saying that the country had no money left. Although he knows that the banks’ actions made a difficult problem worse, he, as someone who is well versed in economics, also knows that the real foundations of the problems of our country are the structural deficit that he left behind

[Mr Byrne]

So you cannot justify it?

[Maria Miller]

The right hon. Gentleman should perhaps keep quiet while listening to what the Government are doing.

The former Chief Secretary did not solve the problems. He and the then Labour Government ducked the important decisions when they were in power—[Interruption.] And now, as I think hon. Members can hear, he is ranting in opposition. Meanwhile, we are working hard to try to implement the new personal independence payment, which is on track for 2013, meaning that support for disabled people will be fairer. At the same time, we are doing much more to support disabled people into work, enabling them to have the same opportunities in life as anybody else: from the Work programme, in which where we are paying providers by results, to Work Choice, through which we are providing intensive back-to-work support for those facing the greatest barriers to employment, and the Access to Work scheme, through which we are investing more to help disabled people and employers with the extra costs of moving into work. None of that was done by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill in his 13 years in government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Maria Miller]

My hon. Friend is right to pick up on those details, because such details make a real difference to family life.

[Mr Byrne]

rose—

[Maria Miller]

Will the right hon. Gentleman let me finish my comments on this point? I think his hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) was expecting to intervene, too, so perhaps a little more civility is called for.

My hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (George Hollingbery) is absolutely right to say that disability living allowance will not be counted within the benefit cap. People who are in receipt of DLA will not be subject to that cap. That is a really important point to make and it is the sort of detail that can make all the difference. The same is true of his comment about the carer’s allowance, which will be outwith universal credit although the universal credit will also recognise the important role that carers play. As this is carers week, we should pay tribute to their role in our communities and our constituencies. I also pay particular tribute to the work of the Minister of State, Department of Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow), to make more support available for carers, especially through carers’ breaks and by ensuring that carers are able to continue their important role.

[Maria Miller]

We absolutely are following that up. I know that the hon. Lady follows such matters closely, so perhaps I need to ensure that she has more details, because I would have anticipated that she knew we are carrying out more work to ensure that there we have a robust evidence base, as she would expect.

I shall draw my remarks to a close. Given that this is an Opposition day debate, I had hoped that we would hear some clear ideas from the Opposition about what they would do; instead, we have heard the same confusion.

[Mr Byrne]

rose—

[Maria Miller]

The right hon. Gentleman was clear about what he would not do—he would not make reforms to DLA; he would not modernise Remploy; and he would not make the WCA fairer—but we heard nothing about what he would do. It is not much of an opposition when rant replaces engagement, when dithering replaces determination, and when there is such political opportunism, including attempting to intervene on someone who is trying to finish their speech. It is no wonder the Leader of the Opposition sacked the right hon. Gentleman as his policy guru; perhaps, for once, the Leader of the Opposition got it right.