Since Labour took up power, DPOs and charities have been clamouring to know who the next disability minister would be. On Friday, 8 days after coming into government, Sir Stephen Timms, was announced as the minister responsible for disability. His official title is Minister for State (Minister for Social Security and Disability). It remains unclear whether he is the lead minister for disability within government or whether an unspecified responsibility for disability is just part of his social security brief.
Other ministers within Government have responsibility for disability, with Stephen Kinnock, minister for social care, charged with overseeing disabilities and SEND (special educational needs and disabilities.).
No -one would argue with disability being the job of every minister, of course it should be, given that 16 million of us are Disabled people. The issue is about who within government will be responsible for driving change for Disabled people.
The approach being taken to allocating responsibility for disability and other equality issues is problematic on so many levels. At its core, adding equality briefs to ministers with major operational duties, signals that tackling inequality for those with protected characteristics under the Equality Act, is not central to Labour’s vision of a changed society.
It clearly emerged from the COVID Inquiry module on government decision making, that the previous disability minister role just didn’t work.
The first reason it didn’t work is because the Minister viewed their primary role as overseeing disability benefits. The role combined responsibility for disability benefits and employment programmes with wider government disability equality planning. Yet during a national emergency, no cross-government disability planning took place. Given this important learning, the current Labour approach, to add disability to the portfolio of a minister with responsibility for the operations of the whole social security system and budget, seriously demotes priority for disability engagement and planning.
Whilst we are not during a pandemic, a high proportion of the UK’s 16 million citizens find ourselves in desperate circumstances, with an urgent need for immediate action and long-term systemic change. The engagement, Drive and focus required to change our life chances, is extremely unlikely to happen with the add-on of disability to a social security brief.
The second reason the former disability minister role didn’t work is because it was in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). This meant that it had no cross-government authority to drive change, its only authority was within DWP. The Minister oversaw the work of the Disability Unit based in the Cabinet Office, which in turn collated rather than directed the disability- related actions of government departments. Two major consequences of a disability minister within DWP were a lack lustre National Disability Strategy and subsequent Disability Action Plan and an abysmal failure of cross government planning to support Disabled people during the height of the COVID pandemic, which led to disproportionate deaths of Disabled people and extreme hardships.
Another omission highlighted by the COVID Inquiry, was the government’s failure to engage with Disabled people. Senior civil servants pointed to the absolute lack of diversity in the room. Given this lack, engaging with Disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) and Disabled people more broadly, should have been treated as a priority during the height of the pandemic. The shocking under-representation of Disabled people in the House of Commons, government and senior civil service, makes strong and deep engagement with DPOs and Disabled people vital for any government. Who in the current government is going to establish and fund the engagement structures needed to coproduce policy and ensure the government machine understands the lived experience and expertise of Disabled people?
We urge the new UK Government to review its approach to tackling disability injustice and inequality. We need a minister with the bandwidth, seniority, authority and cross government brief, to engage with and plan for transformational change for Disabled citizens. As representatives of Disabled people, we need confidence that a government minister has leadership for achieving disability equality and engaging with Disabled people, to shape plans and policies. We need to know that someone in government has the authority and focus to bring about much needed systemic change.
15 July 2024.
Fazilet Hadi