| | 18/12/2023 Monday briefing: The missing minister and a 'very clear' message to Britain's disabled people | | | | Archie Bland |  |
| | | Good morning. Ministers for disabled people are the opposite of buses: there were 11 in the UK in 13 years before 7 December, and then, suddenly, there wasn't one at all. The previous incumbent, Tom Pursglove, had been moved on to deal with reducing legal migration, a job the government considers more important than the circumstances of the UK's 16 million disabled people; Rishi Sunak either didn't think he needed to be replaced, or forgot about it. Only after the story gained traction at the end of last week was a new minister finally appointed – at a more junior level than her predecessor. All of this is shocking, but not that surprising to anyone who has followed disability rights in the UK since 2010. For today's newsletter, I spoke to Frances Ryan, a Guardian columnist and author of Crippled: Austerity and the Demonization of Disabled People, about the abandoned portfolio, the government's record on disability, and what the new minister, Mims Davies, needs to do differently. Here are the headlines. | | | | Five big stories | 1 | Israel-Gaza war | Airstrikes in the Gaza Strip have killed at least 100 people over the last 24 hours, as Israel's leadership faces growing international pressure for a ceasefire and calls at home to resume hostage negotiations after the Israeli army shot and killed three men kidnapped by Hamas. | 2 | UK news | The former Conservative peer Michelle Mone has admitted that she lied to the media about her involvement with a company that made millions in profits from UK government PPE deals. Mone said that she "wasn't trying to pull the wool over anyone's eyes" when she lied about her involvement in PPE Medpro, uncovered by the Guardian. Read an explainer on the story. | 3 | Women's health | A "gamechanging" drug that prevents hot flushes and could benefit hundreds of thousands of women has been approved for use in the UK. The green light for Veoza, also known as fezolinetant, comes after the US regulator, the Food and Drug Administration, authorised it for use in America in May. | 4 | Immigration and asylum | Multinational families threatened with division or exile by tough new income thresholds for living together in the UK are planning legal action to overturn the "cruel and inhumane" policy. A support group for families that may be split up by the new rules has instructed lawyers to explore a challenge to the scheme. | 5 | Schools | Teachers in England will not be made to automatically "out" pupils who come to them with questions over gender identity, despite a push from Conservative rightwingers for a blanket approach, government guidance due to be published this week will say. | | | | | In depth: 'They are only interested in disabled people as far as they can push them into work' | | The government might have thought it had solved its staffing problem with the appointment of Mims Davies, but nobody else who was paying attention did. Instead of being devoted to her brief, Davies will be doing the job alongside her old role on social mobility, and is less senior than Pursglove, who was a minister of state: instead, she is at the most junior governmental rank, of parliamentary under secretary of state. Disabled people, in short, have been demoted. The prime minister's official spokesman said that the government is continuing to show "strong support for disabled people and for disabled issues". Frances Ryan is unconvinced. "The government have created jobs covering Brexit, Levelling Up, and now an extra immigration minister because they wanted to signal to the electorate that these issues matter. So what are they saying about disability? I think the message is very clear."
Why the minister matters Ministerial churn has been a constant problem across the government over the last 13 years, and particularly over the term of the chaotic 2019 parliament, during which three prime ministers have executed myriad reshuffles in the hope of solving their immediate political problems. The disability brief is a particularly severe case. The seniority of the role has gone up and down six times since 2010; the average time in post is 414 days. This matters in any department. In 2020, the Institute for Government published a paper which argued in vain that "constant change undermines good government" because ministers "lack the expertise they need to do their jobs effectively and are unable to see policies through to results". The disability portfolio has additional problems. There is also a sense that many of the responsibilities that it might be expected to cover on behalf of a quarter of the population are instead divided among other departments, leaving the specific role largely focused on managing benefits. Instead of advocating for disabled people and thinking about what they need in the round, the job appears to be about policing them. "When government works well, a dedicated minister who knows the brief is ideal," Frances said. Given the degree of churn and the government's wider record, she added, "I don't think anyone believes having a dedicated minister would actually help improve the lives of disabled people. But not having one does tell voters very clearly what the government's priorities are."
Who the minister should be Another striking feature of the appointment of Davies is that she is yet another person to take the job who doesn't have a disability herself. Davies noted that her father had a head injury for 25 years, that the subject was "a passion", and that she "gets it". It is not a prerequisite for effective governance for the minister to have direct individual experience of their portfolio's impact; on the other hand, it is hard to imagine a man successfully defending his appointment as minister for women by pointing out that his mother was one. "Disabled people are the largest minority in the country," Frances said. "When people aren't physically represented, their interests are a lot less likely to be advocated for. Whereas if you've had direct experience of applying for disability benefits or social care or waiting on NHS long term care, you're in a much better position as a politician to understand and fight for these issues." This is as much a problem with the available pool as with the specific selection of Davies: as well as being the largest minority in the UK, Frances points out, disabled people are also the most unrepresented in parliament. "There's barely a handful of MPs with disclosed disabilities," she said – only five were elected in 2019, and just two of them were Conservative. Depending on the definition of disability you use, the representative figure would be between 65 and 130. "That's insulting but it's also damaging for society. We wouldn't accept male MPs running a reproductive health committee anymore. Why should solely non-disabled politicians speak for the disabled community?"
The government's record | | All of this might be easier to take for disabled people if it wasn't set against a policy backdrop that many view as fundamentally hostile to their rights. Under austerity, Frances said, disabled people have been particularly severely affected because "we're more likely to rely on multiple parts of the state: from social security to the NHS to local councils for social care and emergency welfare. When tens of billions of pounds were pulled from multiple areas of the safety net over a decade, as a result, many disabled people had life as they knew it pulled away." Set that alongside the experience of the pandemic, when, a barrister for four national disabled people's organisations told the Covid inquiry last week, "in fundamental ways disabled people were left without protection". One of Mims Davies' predecessors, Justin Tomlinson, was asked whether there was a cross-government plan for disabled people in place. No, he told the inquiry: "It's included in all of the wider government actions." Again, barrister Danny Friedman KC said, the problem was with the ministerial brief, which did not have the seniority or focus to do the job properly: "Justin Tomlinson was not a lead minister for disabled people, he was in effect a minister for disability benefits who did some front-of-house meetings with disabled groups."
What the new minister needs to do to change the tone Mims Davies has a job on her hands to persuade disabled people that she will be an effective advocate for their interests, or a fair judge of where the state's resources are most needed. She is working against a backdrop of longstanding rhetorical hostility: for years, the government has made hay from casting people with long term health conditions as potential "shirkers". "It has been a relentless 13 years for many people in this country and they are now poorer, sicker, and less secure for it," Frances said. In 2012 George Osborne made a speech about shift workers who see "the closed blinds of their next door neighbour sleeping off a life on benefits". This year, the government has tightened up the way the work capability assessment operates, which the IFS says will cost some people previously judged unable to work almost £400 a month. Rishi Sunak made the policy a feature of his speech to Conservative conference, saying that the status quo is "not fair on taxpayers who have to pick up the bill". It's less than a month since chief secretary to the Treasury Laura Trott said people with disabilities have a "duty" to "work and contribute" and added: "if you don't do this, we will look at sanctions". Davies has been appointed as minister for "disabled people, health and work" – and that last word might be a clue as to how the role is seen within government. Given the changes to the work capability assessment, "the government have made very clear they are only interested in disabled people as far as they can push them into the labour market," Frances said. "If the Conservatives want to rebuild some trust with disabled voters, they should start talking about disabled people like they're human beings and not economic units or drains on the public purse. I can't say that is too much to ask." | | | | What else we've been reading | | Victoria Clarke tells Tim Jonze about life with Shane MacGowan (above), who could be both romantic, and also mean; his lifestyle "simultaneously thrilling and terrifying". While he was undoubtedly a creative genius, she says, "We were living very much on the edge of some kind of actual destruction." Clare Longrigg, acting editor, Newsletters In Gaza, writes Nesrine Malik, the horrors of death and displacement are accompanied by the erasure of culture, academia, and history. It is, she writes, a process of "voiding the architecture of belonging … so that, no matter how many Gazans survive, there is, over time, less and less to bind them together into a valid whole." Archie The team who brought you revelations about the medical profession's failings on menopause and the pill now turns its attention to the UTI scandal. Kate Muir burns through the myths and gives us the science about how costly ineffective treatment could be improved for millions. Clare Zoe Williams' interview with Toby Jones for Saturday magazine captures a sometimes underrated talent who is also unbelievably likeable. "For people who have worked with him, the top line is always that he's a genius," she writes. "But the first thing you notice when you meet him is that he's incredibly nice." Archie The government promised to ban infamous 'no fault' evictions but they are still being used to turn tenants out. Chaminda Jayanetti spent the day in county court with the duty solicitor, to witness the legal maze tenants must navigate to hold on to their homes. Clare | | | | | Sport | | | | | | The front pages | | On the Guardian front page the headline is "Mone admits lying to media over links to firm in PPE deals scandal". The story covers the former Conservative peer's admission on the BBC with a picture from the interview. It's also on the i's front page, which says "'I lied about Covid deal but have done nothing wrong'". The Telegraph has "Israel risks breaking law with its 'killing rage', says Wallace", headlining on comments from the former defence secretary, Ben Wallace. The Financial Times covers Ukraine with "IMF warns Ukraine economy in peril if allies do not speed up extra funding". The Times says "3,000 ward admissions a day linked to obesity". The paper says admissions have doubled in six years according to NHS figures. The Mirror has "Reindeer horror" on its front page as it says a company has sparked fury by selling reindeer-shooting hunts. In the Daily Mail it's "Esther wages war on woke" as the cabinet minister Esther McVey writes in the paper that she will fight against money being spent on equality consultants. And in the Sun it's "Farage shock at drugs raid" as the paper alleges the parents of his daughter's boyfriend were arrested. | | | | Today in Focus | | | | | | | Cartoon of the day | Edith Pritchett | | Sign up for Inside Saturday to see more of Edith Pritchett's cartoons, the best Saturday magazine content and an exclusive look behind the scenes | | | | The Upside | A bit of good news to remind you that the world's not all bad | | In 2017, Elizabeth Vickerie handed in her notice after over 30 years working in education. She took early retirement and relocated from east London to a 47-hectare organic farm near Bath. Swapping the office for rolling hills dotted with grazing sheep, Vickerie now raises animals and manages events on the land for a living. "The ability to be outdoors and see the seasons coming in is an absolute joy," she says. "Since I've always been a very busy person, I wouldn't have done retirement well. It's good that I've found another busy job to do." Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday | | | | Bored at work? | And finally, the Guardian's puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day – with plenty more on the Guardian's Puzzles app for iOS and Android. Until tomorrow. | | |  | | | … there is a good reason why people choose not to support the Guardian. | | Not everyone can afford to pay for the news right now. That's why we choose to keep our coverage of Westminster and beyond, open for everyone to read. If this is you, please continue to read for free.
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