Remploy announces closure plans

Remploy has told the government it wants to close 28 factories which currently employ 1,600 disabled workers.

Union leaders reacted with fury to the news, announced by the company on Monday.

In its "final" proposal to ministers, Remploy said it wanted to merge 11 plants and shut 17.

It had at first intended to close 43 factories with the loss of 2,500 jobs, but said it could keep more sites open because of savings and an assumption of more public procurement orders.

The issue of closures came close to sparking a major row at the Labour Party conference in September.

Work and pensions secretary Peter Hain avoided an embarrassing defeat by announcing a moratorium on closures, promising no factories would be shut down without ministerial approval.

Remploy chief executive Bob Warner said: "The plan we have submitted to the secretary of state meets the goals set by the government for us to support many more disabled people into jobs in mainstream employment, avoid compulsory redundancy of employees and remain within the £555m funding limit.

"Ministers have committed to careful scrutiny of Remploy's proposals. There will be no factory closures without their agreement."

Promising to study the proposals in detail, Hain said: "Good progress was made during the consultation period and although full agreement was not reached between the company and the trade unions, there has been real dialogue and progress on both sides.

"We expect to receive further representations from the trade unions representing the Remploy workers."

Paul Kenny, general secretary of the GMB union, said: "At the Labour Party conference, the government agreed a new direction based on 'choice' for disabled workers, using public procurement to generate a steady workload to secure the future of the Remploy factories as allowed under EU rules.

"Last week, the trade and industry select committee endorsed this approach.

"Yet a mere six weeks later we have the absolute disgrace of a failed response from a failed management, putting forward, in public, proposals which completely ignore what was agreed at Bournemouth that will lead to the sacking of over 2,000 disabled workers."