Remploy

Debate between Stephen Lloyd and Andrew George

Thursday 15th December 2011 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Lloyd]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. George Tomlinson’s goal was to help disabled people to secure open employment and to lead full lives, and the Remploy factories existed as a short-term solution for rehabilitation and learning new skills. Tomlinson never intended them to be places where disabled people stayed for long. As Andrew Lee, chief executive of People First, who happens to have a learning disability, has said:

“People with learning difficulties want the chance to have the same job opportunities as everyone else. Organisations such as Remploy that segregate disabled people will not provide the opportunities to work that disabled people want for the 21st Century.”

Surely, therefore, in this modern world, there is something wrong—we are back to Remploy—when workers are mostly disabled, but managers are mostly non-disabled. Many disabled people successfully run their own businesses, employing disabled and non-disabled people, so can it be right that we support in 2011—solidify, even—such an old-fashioned, paternalist attitude towards people with disabilities?

[Andrew George]

I respect the bravery of the case that my hon. Friend is making, although I have not necessarily come to the same conclusions. Recommendation 5 of the Sayce report emphasises choice for disabled people. One choice should surely be the stepping-stone of sheltered workshops. The problem with the recommendation is that, if the funding follows the disabled person, the money will not be in place to provide either the certainty or the capital investment to ensure that sheltered workshops will continue to exist, to provide that choice.

Health and Social Care (Re-committed) Bill

Debate between Stephen Lloyd and Andrew George

Wednesday 7th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Andrew George]

Yes, and my new clause 16 proposes to address that issue through an opportunity for the Secretary of State to intervene as necessary.

The Secretary of State in his intervention on the hon. Member for Pontypridd made it clear that in any case Secretaries of State tend not to micro-manage by intervening or by providing on every whip and flip, and there is no suggestion of that, but as a backstop we require the guarantee that, if all else fails and the whole system does not provide what we believe needs to be put in place to provide for a comprehensive health service, the Secretary of State will be there. There would be no harm in putting that word back in the Bill in one form or another. I do not understand the obstinacy, and in my view there is no legal impediment to the Government doing so.

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, because this is such a totemic issue, the key reason behind the proposed change in the wording is totally to reassure the public that, come what may, and even if delegated powers mean that the Secretary of State has not been involved for a number of years, the buck will stop with the Secretary of State?

[Andrew George]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He has referred to the issue as being totemic, and although I do not want to detain the House for too long because many others have referred to it, he is absolutely right. Now that it has been raised in such a manner, unless there are good legal reasons not to insert it in the Bill, it should be.

On the comments of the hon. Member for Pontypridd, I make a further point. We are talking about major changes, and the issue is not only totemic but contextual, because, in the context of a major—in fact, the most major—reorganisation of the health service, the reassurance of that backstop being in place would be all the more important.

I do not questions the intentions of the Secretary of State, for whom I have tremendous respect, but, having opposed the creation of the health service in the first place, the Conservatives have a problem, because the context is one of a major change, and whether we like it or not the assumption is that, if the Secretary of State is a Conservative, the hurdle will have to be set higher to reassure the nation that there is no untoward intention behind the legislation.