Remploy

Madeleine Moon Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2011 Westminster Hall

[Ann Clwyd]

I thank my right hon. Friend for making that point. I received a letter about half an hour ago from my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Mr Reed), who would have liked to have been present but could not make it. He wants me to mention the Cleator Moor factory in his constituency and says that it has operated very successfully for many years and currently has a large order book. Some factories, therefore, have large order books and are, in fact, turning work away.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for calling for this very important debate. The Bridgend factory is in a similar position. It has a long-standing relationship with Ford and is currently bidding for a new contract with it, but it is in the difficult position of not knowing what its future holds and whether it will in fact be there and be able to fulfil that contract, if it is awarded to it. It then faces the problem of whether it will be allowed, if successful, to recruit more disabled people to work at the factory. That insecurity is affecting the whole of the work force.

[Ann Clwyd]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. Uncertainty is having a very bad effect, both on the morale of the people who work in the factory and on that of their relatives. Everybody will want to make points about their particular areas and factories. Before I take another intervention, I want to mention the last round of redundancies in the Aberdare Remploy factory in 2008. Of the 18 disabled employees who took voluntary redundancy, only one person ever returned to work, although many others would have liked to have had a job and were able to have one had one been available.

--- Later in debate ---

[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There is a real need to step up the level of support available to disabled people, as well as tackling outdated and ignorant attitudes among career advisers and employers.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.

[Mrs Moon]

The hon. Gentleman makes the point that currently spending on a Remploy worker is five times more than on a worker in an ordinary job. Does he not agree that part of the problem has always been the high level of expenditure on consultants, the high level of over-management, and the high cost to each individual Remploy factory for central services? It is the management structure of Remploy, not the workers, that makes Remploy more expensive. Let us remember that and stop criticising the workers and start criticising the management structure and framework.

[Stephen Lloyd]

What is so hilarious is that I have been doing that for a long time. That point was being made years ago, when the previous Government were in charge. Yes, there is a grain of truth in it—of course there is. Remploy is top-heavy and sclerotic, but that is ancient history. I remember exactly the same argument when Labour was in charge. There is an issue and I will come to it later. We need to be smarter in the way we use Remploy, but that particular tack is so ancient, that if it was on the floor it would curl over and die.

Oral Answers to Questions

Madeleine Moon Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

One of the things we are looking at as part of our feasibility study on the future of credit unions is their crucial role in supporting people who need financial advice and assistance. That work will report back to the Department next month.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

I declare an interest as one of the almost 3,000 members of the Bridgend Lifesavers credit union, which has loans of more than £500,000 but savings of £1 million and is keeping people out of the hands of doorstep loan sharks and the sadly growing numbers of pawnbrokers on our high streets. What can we do to ensure that people see credit unions, rather than doorstep loan sharks, as the way to save and borrow?

Oral Answers to Questions

Madeleine Moon Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I agree with my hon. Friend that that is an anomaly. It is also something that the Department is reviewing as we speak, and we will give more details in due course.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

Incapacity benefit reassessments have been causing great distress, and even suicides, among those with mental health problems. Some 95% of those polled said that they did not believe that they could trust the assessment to take their mental health condition into account. What changes will be made to ensure that people with mental health problems will have them taken into account in the work capacity assessment?

[Chris Grayling]

As the hon. Lady will be aware, that was one of the key questions that we put to Professor Malcolm Harrington last year. As a result of his recommendations we have introduced a number of mental and cognitive champions among the providers in the assessment network. We are also considering a range of further recommendations from mental health charities, and we have instructed our decision makers to take careful account of evidence of mental health problems when reaching their decisions.

Welfare Reform Bill

Madeleine Moon Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

As the hon. Lady would have known if she had listened to the debate in Committee, we are putting in place transitional protection for the introduction of universal credit, so that no one will lose out in cash terms as a result of the changes. That is right and appropriate. The problem with new clause 2 is, first, the cost, which the right hon. Member for East Ham did not mention.

Had we introduced new clause 2 with the current 16-hour rule, the cost would be around £200 million to £400 million, which would be additional to current expenditure of around £2 billion. The Opposition have therefore made a clear spending commitment, which appears to be a reversal of their policy—I was under the impression that the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Chancellor had said, “No spending commitments without official sanction.” Perhaps this spending commitment has official sanction, but, if so, they need to say where the money is coming from.

Two or three Opposition proposals that we will debate today require extra spending. It is incumbent on a party that has just presided over the building of the biggest deficit in our peacetime history to say where the money is coming from if it proposes spending commitments that would take away some of the money that we are trying to reinvest to deal with the deficit. Do Labour Members want to borrow more money? If so, that £200 million to £400 million means extra public borrowing. Alternatively, will they increase taxes? They need to explain where the money is coming from.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

Does the Minister understand that many women are frightened by the Bill’s proposals and nervous about their futures—about whether they can continue working and supporting their families? Women who are looking to move into work are not worried about artificial arguments on whether the Labour party has a new spending commitment. They want to know whether the Bill will give them the opportunity to move into work when they are capable of doing so, and whether the Government will give them child care support. In many cases, child care is the only thing stopping them making that step.

[Chris Grayling]

Women and men in this country have realised that the previous Government’s belief that money grows on trees is wrong. They have also realised that the consequence of the previous Government’s policies—they simply threw money at every problem—is that we are faced with the most monumental deficit challenge. If we do not deal with that, we will end up in the same position as a number of other countries. I would not want us to be in that place, because women’s chances of getting back into work would be much diminished by the state of such an economy.

[Mrs Moon]

I appreciate that there is concern about the deficit, but will the Minister assure us that women who are unable to work because the cost of their child care will remove all the benefit of them doing so will not find themselves harassed or pressured by the Department for Work and Pensions to take work that will leave them out of pocket? Will that be taken into account when their capacity to work is reviewed?

[Chris Grayling]

I am not sure whether the hon. Lady was in the Chamber a moment ago when I answered question on child care from the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Sandra Osborne), but the former seems to be forgetting the fact that there is no job search obligation for the lone parent of a child who is below school age. A job search requirement is made only when a child is at school, and the requirement is for a willingness to accept a reasonable job offer that fits around school hours. No draconian measure is waiting to hit a lone parent as their child grows older. Our system is pretty supportive, and we have been absolutely clear that child care costs will continue to be paid through universal credit.

The hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) must also understand that our nation’s resources are finite. We cannot just turn on the financial taps because we feel like it. We must take pragmatic decisions on what the nation can and cannot afford. We set out very clearly in our announcement last year that there is a £2 billion envelope to fund child care. Parliamentarians now need to agree how best to spend that money.