§ Dr. Roger Thomasasked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will give the numbers of persons in sheltered employment and the numbers of registered disabled people under section 2 of the Disabled Persons (Employment) Act 1944 for the latest available date and for each of the past five years, together with the projected number of places available in sheltered employment schemes for the next three years in each case for each of the eight counties of the Principality.
§ Mr. Peter Morrison:Given below, in table 1, are the numbers of severely disabled people working in sheltered employment in each of the Welsh counties on 31 March 1980 (latest available figure) and on the same date in each of the four preceding years.
The Manpower Services Commission, which is responsible for the administration of the sheltered employment programme, does not maintain records of the numbers of unemployed registered severely disabled people on a county basis but is able to provide this figure for Wales as a whole. The latest figure and those for each of the preceding five years are given below in table 2.
It is not possible to predict with any degree of certainty the number of places that will be offered in sheltered employment over the next three years, although there is provision for a modest increase in real terms in Government funding of sheltered employment over that period.
Table 1 County 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 Mid Glamorgan 757 771 724 740 749 Gwent 272 277 259 266 264 West Glamorgan 275 280 258 332 342 East Clwyd 112 148 131 112 145 Powys — — — — — Gwynedd 11 25 24 26 28 Dyfed 58 66 28 61 62 South Glamorgan — — — — — Total 1485 1567 1424 1537 1590
Table 2 Numbers of registered severely disabled people in Wales who were unemployed in March in the following years.
1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 Registered Severely Disabled Peopled 1,501 1,250 1,110 973 871 837