Remploy

Debate between Stephen Lloyd and Geraint Davies

Thursday 15th December 2011 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Lloyd]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that incredibly important point. The variability of the support that disabled people need is absolutely vast—it is like a length of string. Let me give an example. I missed a vote a few months after I was elected, because I did not hear the Division bell, which is not surprising, because I am half deaf. What was the solution? I made an adjustment in my office in Norman Shaw North, and I now have a flashing light there; it is not complicated, but there are some advantages. Of course, a lot of us in this Chamber sometimes appreciate it if we do not hear the Division bell, but that is by the bye.

However, that is a good example of what we are talking about. My disability is pretty minor—I have been hard of hearing ever since I got measles when I was six or seven years old—and one can accommodate it quite easily. However, someone with, say, profound mobility problems will need more support than someone like me, and someone with severe mental health issues will need even more support. I therefore entirely agree that this is not black and white, and it is not easy to pigeonhole people. If Access to Work is done properly, however, and there are other supporting mechanisms, it can be very effective, even for people with a profound disability, as I will explain a bit later.

Remploy employs 2,800 people, whereas Access to Work currently supports 37,000 and could support 70,000 if the budget were used better. Furthermore—this is unpopular but important—there are few new entrants to Remploy factories, as more and more disabled people are supported in moving to open employment. Given what the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley said, I am absolutely certain that some of the factories in the group are, despicably, not taking on some of the disabled people they should be; I cannot prove that, but I am sure she is right. However, one of the main reasons they are not taking on as many disabled people as they used to is that more and more of those who want to work are getting support to help them move into open employment.

[Geraint Davies]

Swansea Remploy, which I mentioned, is very productive and effective, but the voluntary redundancy scheme there and elsewhere was in danger of taking key people out of the production chain. Currently, Remploy’s management has imposed a virtual employment freeze; the factory is, for instance, looking for a design technician, which is holding back orders. In other words, the Government and Remploy’s management are preventing Remploy from succeeding, contrary to what the hon. Gentleman suggests.

[Stephen Lloyd]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, but I am not sure it is true. That is the same situation as we had years ago—it really is. These things have not come out of the woodwork under this Government.

[Geraint Davies]

I got that information first hand on a visit to Remploy in Swansea last week. It has a showroom and it is getting new people in ordering things, but it faces production constraints because it cannot recruit the right people. It wants to recruit more people and to be more successful, but it is being held back.

[Stephen Lloyd]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his further intervention. As I will explain later, the Remploy model needs changing. Remploy’s corporate size is a disadvantage and makes it very sclerotic, so it cannot move swiftly to adapt to circumstances. The Government need to be more creative about how Remploy factories and branches within the corporate body act. I do not deny what the hon. Gentleman says—indeed, I am sure it is true—but I guarantee that it could have been said 10 years ago. I absolutely promise that, because I know the subject.