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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Maria Eagle): Did the hon. Gentleman win?

Mr. Sanders: No. I got soap in my eyes from the foam machine. Local firms and local societies put in teams and raised enormous sums of money for the centre.

There is a real connection, right down to the fact that people in town are used to seeing people learning to cope with the loss of sight—perhaps learning to use a stick—and can point them in the right direction when they have been allowed to wander into town from the residential centre. Geographically, the area offers every obstruction and barrier that anyone who has lost their sight could wish to learn to deal with: broken pavements, busy traffic, hillsides, complicated bus routes and all the rest of it. The centre is part of our community and we do not want it to go.

People do not give the RNIB donations to match fund Government projects. They do it to help programmes that the Government do not support and we have to ask who will support those now? If the RNIB is retreating, who will come to the rescue? I think that we know the answer, but the Government could put pressure on the RNIB to think again and delay a final decision until it has properly analysed the business plan. It is not the case that all the staff at the centre who have built up specialist expertise over many years will simply transfer to Taunton, or that Taunton will be able to deal with the client group from Torbay. It is that client group who will miss out.

I hope that this debate will help the RNIB to think again. People with impaired vision in my constituency and throughout south Devon will be the losers, and the biggest losers of all will be those who, tomorrow, next week, next month and thereafter will lose their sight without warning.

Mr. David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD): Is not the dearth of professionals working in rehabilitation in visual impairment a concern for the future? Does my hon. Friend share my view that the Government could also do more to provide low vision aids? He talked about the advancing technology earlier. The Government have revolutionised what is available for the deaf through
 
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digital hearing aids. Could not they do the same for this client group, taking advantage of new technology that is far superior to what was available previously?

Mr. Sanders: That is an important point. I referred to the low vision centre at Manor House, which has all the latest gadgets. Perhaps the Government could indeed do more. I know that my hon. Friend speaks as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on eye health, for which he is famed and does good work.

My late mother lost her sight and was one of the people from Devon who was able to go to the visual aid unit. Tremendous things are available to help people maintain their quality of life despite deteriorating eyesight and I cannot praise the centre enough.

Mr. Heath: The problem is that the technology is available, but at a price. Unit costs are extremely high. I spoke to the Minister of State, Department of Health, the hon. Member for Doncaster, Central (Ms Winterton) about this yesterday, and I hope that the Minister here can also talk to her colleague about how the Government can tackle the problem so that more people have access to the technology.

Mr. Sanders: I am sure that the Minister heard my hon. Friend and will respond. I am also keen that something should be done about VAT on audio books, which are also highly valued by people with poor or no sight.

Imagine the position of someone who wakes up tomorrow, next week, next month or thereafter having lost their sight, without warning. If the centre closes, there will be no comparable facility anywhere in the world to help them. I cannot stress enough the uniqueness and excellence of the centre. It helps people to come to terms with those changed circumstances. I spoke last week to a member of staff who is convinced that there are people who might have committed suicide had it not been for the support available at the centre. They were not ready to go into vocational or pre-vocational training, but needed support to pick their lives up off the floor and come to terms with the trauma. Without that facility, receiving a white stick in the post might be all the support and help that some people get.

I conclude with a comment from a member of staff at Manor House who said:

"My broad view is that any future proposal that 'fixes on' Further Education as the future location for the work that has been undertaken at Manor House is flawed. I am clear that the majority of clients I see here—and the many who are not funded to come, or even know of our existence—would be negatively affected by the culture, geography and pace of FE. There is a need for a properly funded facility—along the lines of Stoke Mandeville—for clients who have been and are devastated by sight loss."

6.51 pm

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Maria Eagle): May I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Torbay (Mr. Sanders) on securing this debate? Luckily for him, we have had a little more time than might have otherwise been the case, because the main business finished slightly early, which has enabled him to set out at length—
 
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probably as fully as he would have wanted to had he had unlimited time—the points that he wanted to make on the valuable facility in his constituency.

I have also heard what the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) had to say, and I recognise, too, the interest that the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) has in the matter. There is no doubt that those who have to deal with visual impairment are numerous and initially, particularly when sight deteriorates, have difficult problems to overcome in order to get on with their lives. Some 111,000 people of working age in Britain have difficulty in seeing as their main disability. "Difficulty in seeing", the definition used in the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, covers both people who are blind and those who are partially sighted.

In addition, more than 20 per cent. of the almost 10 million disabled people in Great Britain have a disability related in some way to seeing, so there is no doubt that the impairment is prominent and difficult to deal with for those who have to do so in their lives. It is an impairment that is of great concern to the Government, and to my Department in particular, which has some responsibility for trying to enable those with visual impairment to put their lives back together, get back to work and remain in work, and partake again of life following the trauma of losing their sight or of a sudden deterioration in their ability to see. I therefore congratulate the hon. Member for Torbay on raising the issue without in any way limiting what I have to say. We, too, are concerned about the matter.

I shall say something on the particular issue of Manor House, which the hon. Gentleman set out in great detail. We are, of course, aware of the impending closure of the Royal National Institute of the Blind's residential training centre in Torquay, which it announced in its press release of 29 March. My Department intends to take every step possible, in conjunction with the RNIB, to ensure that people currently at the centre who will need to be assisted in some other way get what they need for their particular requirements. My officials will meet the RNIB about that very matter on Friday. We very much believe that we will be able to replace the courses that those people are in the middle of, and that we will be able to deal with the needs of those currently at Manor House.

Of course, this is not a matter for the Government, and the hon. Gentleman was kind enough to make it clear at the beginning of his remarks that he was not criticising the Government. It is not for the Government to tell the RNIB how it should provide its services. It is an independent charity, and we have contracts with it to provide courses for our own visually impaired clients throughout the country. The RNIB is one of many providers, and it is not for us to tell it how and where to make such provision. Our job is to provide help and assistance to visually impaired people throughout the country.

I should make it clear, however, that in addition to not being responsible for whether Manor House stays open, we were not consulted by the RNIB on the closure. There is no particular reason why it should consult us—it has no obligation to do so, and the matter is one for itself—but I should make it clear that we had no more advance knowledge of the closure than the hon.
 
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Gentleman. In fact, he probably knew more about it than I did, given that local MPs usually hear things on the grapevine a bit sooner than Whitehall does.

The RNIB acts as a contractor for Jobcentre Plus. Of course, it is not for us to guarantee or comment on the viability of particular places or courses; our job is to ensure that the services provided by our contractors offer value for money, that they provide what we expect them to provide, and that they do the job that we expect of them.

As the hon. Gentleman mentioned, there has been some discussion about changes in the type of provision, such as mainstreaming into colleges. He expressed his own views about that so far as his local area is concerned, and it has been suggested that that was a factor in the closure. Our disability employment advisers always recommend to their clients the most suitable provider, in order to deliver the most cost-effective programme to meet the individual's employment needs. It is not true that our DEAs have gone off residential training or have suddenly become positive about a different way of providing such help. In fact, a recent survey of DEAs demonstrated that they are very positive about the quality of residential training for clients, including at Manor House.

I should also make it clear that we have other centres at which such training can continue to be provided, and that we have contracts that will enable us to continue to meet the needs of those who want residential training. There is no doubt that, these days, some of our clients prefer to stay at home and perhaps do not regard residential training as their first choice; instead, they would prefer a more local service. To the extent that our DEAs are there to meet the needs of individual clients, they will of course take that point into account when recommending the type of course that is suitable for a given individual. However, we have no preference one way or the other.

It has been said—although not by the hon. Gentleman—that falling volumes and a decline in Government money might in some way be responsible for the closure. In 1997–98, we bought spaces for six residential training places at Manor House at any given time. The total spend was £48,500, give or take a few pounds. In 2002–03 there were 10 such places, and the total spend was £148,353. So although it is true that the number of places we contract for is small—of course, that always presents a certain threat to the viability of any organisation—it is not true that the number has fallen significantly. Nor has the amount of money spent by my Department at Manor House declined.

The hon. Gentleman referred to the RNIB's suggestion that it provides far more than our Department pays for. In a way, he answered the point himself, by making it clear that the Royal National Institute of the Blind has wider charitable objectives. The money that we pay to the RNIB at Manor House is not for meeting its wider charitable objectives, but for holding the residential training courses that we contract with the organisation. It may well provide more than we pay for—

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