Wednesday 7 March 2012

Remploy Closures

A quick post, but one of importance.

The news has been announced that the Government is closing to close 36 of the 54 Remploy factories - Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Motherwell in Scotland - in order to "redirect" the money.

I think cobblers would be a printable reaction.

I have close relatives who are disabled - one old and one young. I also understand the difficulties faced by both employers and employees.

Remploy provides excellent support and motivation for disabled people. it provides them with  a focus on life, rather than sitting at home all day. Some disabled people are self-conscious about their disability; some are not bothered; and some want the world to know. In short, they are basically the same as you and me. But you and I generally do not need additional support, in some cases just to carry out simple tasks. These people do, and having employment helps them to support themselves.

£320 million pounds is small change to a Government spending considerably more on less tasteful policies. And it seems that all they are doing is diverting this money - in their words - in order to help find the disabled find work. All well and good, but in case they hadn't noticed, jobs are being lost left, right and centre.

Remploy has been in existence for over sixty years. Why Westminster is hell bent on closing more than half of the factories is beyond me. They seem to have this inability to understand the important service that Remploy provides.

Perhaps Westminster could stop giving foreign aid to countries such as India, and focus on their own people first.

We also need a statement from the Scottish Government as to what support they can provide, and hopefully some strong criticism directed at the Minister for Disabled People, Maira Miller.

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