Remploy

Debate between Pat McFadden and Ann Clwyd

Thursday 15th December 2011 Westminster Hall

[Ann Clwyd]

I cannot emphasise enough the pride that people who work in Remploy factories have in their work. They do not want to sit there doing nothing—they want to work—but one of the problems with procurement, or the lack of it, is that too many of them are sitting, waiting for work that has not come. Members may have seen the recent lists of those local authorities that are procuring work through Remploy factories and those that are not. Some local authorities in this country are not getting any work done by the Remploy factories in their area, which is a tragedy.

In a period in which unemployment is rising, it is pie in the sky and cruelly misleading to suggest that expanding the Access to Work programme will result in more work for disabled people. In my area, people would like any opportunity to work, but it is particularly difficult for disabled people and always has been. I remember when the disablement resettlement officers tried to get work for disabled people and how difficult it was for them in a very different environment from the one we are in now.

Remploy is at a crossroads. All 54 Remploy factories are under threat of closure when the current public funding ends in April 2013. The threat is compounded by the factories being deliberately run at 50% of their capacity. It is crucial that, instead of deliberately running down the factories in order to, in my opinion, justify closure, an alternative Government strategy is devised to maintain funding and enable individual factories to secure work.

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

In the House a couple of months ago, I asked the Minister a similar question about the factories. An allegation has been made that, although the performance of the factories varies from place to place, some are actually turning work away, perhaps in order to create the self-fulfilling prophecy of being financially inviable. The Minister said that she had not heard that that is the case, but has my right hon. Friend heard that it is? Since that exchange in the House, the allegation has continued to be made. When we talk about viability, it is important to establish whether that is what has been happening.

[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.