The Daily Telegraph reports that the vote on 1 December 2020 was for a stronger system of tiered restrictions.
Special adviser Allan Nixon said to Hancock: “I think we need to dangle our top asks over some of these 2019 intake MPs who are going off the boil this coming week. Thoughts on me suggesting to Chief’s spads [special advisors] that they give us a list of the 2019 intakes thinking of rebelling. Eg James wants his Learning Disability Hub in Bury - whips call him up and say Health team want to work with him to deliver this but that’ll be off the table if he rebels.
“These guys’ re-election hinges on us in a lot of instances, and we know what they want. We should seriously consider using it IMO.
Hancock replied: “yes 100%”
DR UK CEO Kamran Mallick said: “A month before these comments, the first ONS data came in about the impacts of Covid on people with learning disabilities. The chances of someone with a learning disability dying of Covid at this point was six times more than a person without a learning disability.
“People with learning disabilities were also denied information about the pandemic, and protective measures, due to the persistent failure of Government to produce critical public information in alternative formats at the same time as conventional formats. Easy read formats, a type of pictorial document used widely by people with learning disabilities, were especially hard to come by in a timely fashion.
“These texts show a shocking level of disregard by those at the very top of Government for people with learning disabilities during the pandemic. As a community, they were thrown to the wolves, as were Disabled people in general. That vital hubs – safe, supportive spaces – for people with learning disabilities were considered expendable as part of a bullying carrot and stick approach to controlling MPs shows a horrific level of contempt and judgement for Disabled people during the pandemic.
“We often feel like second class citizens. Our country’s leaders should be modelling respect, dignity and protection for Disabled people, especially during the pandemic when six in ten deaths were those of Disabled people.
“These comments between Nixon and Hancock are horrific, despicable, and beyond contempt.”
James Daly told the Telegraph he was surprised the hub was threatened because, after conversations in January 2020 with Hancock, “it never got dangled in the first place”.
He said: “They were never proposing to give it to me. I still don’t have it. Even though I have repeatedly campaigned for it, Hancock never showed the slightest bit of interest in supporting it. I had a number of conversations with Hancock at that time, but I can definitively say the hub was never mentioned.
“I think it is appalling. The fact that they would only give a much needed support for disabled people if I voted for this was absolutely disgusting.”