Remploy

Nick Smith Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2011 Westminster Hall

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

I congratulate the Backbench Business Committee on selecting this important issue for debate today and my right hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) and other colleagues on their powerful advocacy in support of Remploy. I apologise, Mr Havard, for having to leave early this afternoon, because I have a long-standing appointment.

Remploy workers have my wholehearted support. I know from the packed lobby of Remploy staff in Parliament in October that there is backing for them throughout the country, and I congratulate the GMB and Unite on their sustained and high-profile campaign on their behalf. Workers at the lobby were rightly furious about the prospect of losing their jobs.

The Abertillery Remploy factory in my constituency was opened in 1949, and in 1955 one of my illustrious predecessors, Rev. Llewellyn Williams, called on Ministers to ensure that it operated at full capacity, which was then 100 workers. Today, it has just 21 workers. Abertillery Remploy manufactures upholstery for wheelchairs, and it does a good job, but it needs more contracts and a management that properly sell the skills of its first-class work force.

The world has changed much since the 1950s, and the drive for full equality for disabled people is to be supported. In her review, Liz Sayce said that she wanted employment support that would meet the future aspirations of disabled people in the context of a changing economy and the big changes in the way we all work. I wholeheartedly agree with her top-level analysis, which must be right. Others today have outlined the Sayce review recommendations, and there have been some good proposals, such as giving Remploy factories the opportunity to put forward plans to form new businesses or to retain existing ones. It is important that those ideas are independently evaluated.

Sayce also said that non-viable factories should close and that Government funding should end. However, is that really the most sensible strategy in the current economic climate and when there are few new jobs in the south Wales valleys? Recently in my home town of Tredegar in Blaenau Gwent, which is one valley over from Abertillery Remploy, 250 people applied for 25 jobs in a new Tesco store that is about to open.

Sheffield Hallam university has recently reported on the impact of incapacity benefit reforms in different parts of the UK. Its report estimates that by 2014 the reforms will cut incapacity claimant numbers by nearly 1 million, 800,000 of which will be existing incapacity claimants who will lose their entitlement. As many hon. Members are aware, people on incapacity benefits are not evenly spread throughout the UK. There are large variations from just 2.3% of the work force in Wokingham to 13.9% in Blaenau Gwent in the south-east Wales valleys. Wales, the north-west, the north-east and Scotland are the areas that will feel the greatest impact of incapacity benefit reforms. They are areas where deprivation is high, and economies are weak. I am fearful that Remploy closures in places such as Abertillery will lead to its workers moving not to private sector jobs with the appropriate support, but to joining the dole queue alongside former incapacity benefit claimants. That is the reality of what will happen in many parts of the country

The GMB has told us that the majority of Remploy workers who lost their jobs in 2008 are still unemployed, so if the factory closures go ahead by April 2013, the prospect for current Remploy workers is bleak. The Government continue to axe jobs, and their plans for growth are weak. If recovery is choked off, thousands of Remploy workers will be put on the dole alongside other workers so, as hon. Members have said, it is likely that they will claim benefits instead of paying taxes. That forecast is troubling. However, I believe that Remploy can have a future, but only if it is allowed to modernise with Government support. If we can offer Remploy more public contracts, we should do so. Above all, the Government should get back round the negotiating table with Remploy workers and trade unions.

As others have said, the Government should explore the use of Article 19 of the EU directive on public sector procurement, which specifies the right of public bodies to reserve some contracts for supported businesses such as Remploy, and I encourage other bodies involved in public procurement to utilise that directive. I have been told that in Blaenau Gwent the local council is doing what it can to boost public procurement and that it wants a meeting with Remploy management and the unions in the new year. I know that other hon. Members want to speak, so I shall draw my comments to a close. In a nutshell, it pays to care and to keep Remploy workers in work and off welfare. I hope the Government will listen today and do everything that they can to secure Remploy employment in the future.