2014 marks the 40th anniversary of the creation of what was then called the “Minister for the Disabled”. As latest ministerial incumbent Mike Penning settles into the role, what difference has such a role made over the years?
“I came into politics to make a difference in people’s lives,” says Mike Penning MP, the new Minister of State for Disabled People, when asked about his new role. “I’ve a background of talking about disabled people, helping disabled people get into work. There’s a Mencap residence in the road where I live. The Prime Minister knew I had a personal interest.”
Chatting with Access magazine, Penning seemed pleased that he was one of the first ministers called in to see David Cameron during the most recent Government reshuffle. Yet he’s also proud how his transfer from the Northern Ireland Office to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) also instigated a promotion of sorts for the cross-departmental role of disabilities minister.
“Esther McVey, my predecessor put her life and soul into the job,” he explains, “but it’s a fact she was a junior minister. As Minister of State, I’m the deputy Secretary of State in the DWP, with access to the Prime Minister on this specific issue–to pull government together to make sure that the outcomes and aspirations of disabled people are met as far as possible within the budget we have.”
40 YEARS
This “promotion” of disability up the ministerial hierarchy is the latest development in the 40 years since Mancunian MP Alf Morris was appointed as the UK’s–indeed, the world’s–first “Minister for the Disabled” (sic) by then Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson.
The choice of Morris (who died in 2012) was hardly surprising; as a backbench MP, he’d instigated what became, in 1970, the first legislation anywhere in the world that dealt with disability issues–including physical access, dyslexia, autism, the needs of deafblind children, special housing and the provision of appropriate aids within the home.
Morris’s Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act was necessarily limited, but with it he effectively created his own ministerial job. “The Act affected the duties and responsibilities of twelve Departments of State,” he explained in an interview in 2003. “That pointed to having a Minister who could co-ordinate the responsibilities of all Departments of State affecting the problems and needs of disabled people,”
A QUESTION OF CIVIL RIGHTS
Morris’s first priority was ensuring disabled people had an income as a right. “I was very fortunate to be able to introduce the Severe Disablement Allowance, the Mobility Allowance and the first ever Carers’ Allowance,” he explained. However, though these were in themselves significant (the Mobility Allowance being a necessary first step towards the creation of the Motability Scheme) Morris’s longterm goal was simple and far-reaching–full civil rights for all disabled people.
He appointed a Committee of Enquiry in 1978 to look into the need for further legislation. However, the General Election the following year saw Morris suddenly become a member of “Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition”. While the Committee’s report was published in 1982, nothing was done. “It was just left in a Whitehall pigeon hole gathering dust for nine years,” he explained.
It’s fair to say that Morris wasn’t particularly enamoured with most of his Conservative successors. Some were certainly politicians on the way up–the list of former “Ministers for the Disabled” includes former Prime Minister John Major and our current Foreign Secretary William Hague—but those bright stars were often in the post for less than 10 months.
YES, MINISTER?
Not that ministerial consistency necessarily helped matters. The late Conservative MP Nicholas Scott held the post for more than seven years. Despite overseeing the introduction of the Disability Living Allowance (DLA) in 1992, Scott ultimately became the target for significant criticism from disability campaigners–including his own daughter.
In 1991, Morris drafted and produced his “Civil Rights Disabled Persons Bill”, which was then “obstructed” by successive governments for four years, ultimately failing after it had been “talked out” by, amongst others, Scott himself. During one particularly fractious debate, the then Minister for the Disabled was accused by Labour MP Dennis Skinner of kicking disabled people’s crutches away.
“My great regret is that so much time was lost,” Morris himself said in 2003. “We led the way in appointing an official Government enquiry into the Rights of Disabled People in 1978, and the report was out in good time to have legislated on Civil Rights by the mid-Eighties. In the end, nothing was done until 1995.”
THE DDA
Given the growing clamour for legislation, Scott and his successor Hague pushed through what became the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) 1995. Though much criticised at the time, the DDA 1995 would became the foundation on which most subsequent disability legislation was based–and remains in force today in Northern Ireland.
Despite the legislation’s perceived flaws, Tony Blair’s first Government ultimately chose to fully implement the DDA 1995, with the aim of “plugging any gaps” with further legislation. The person ultimately charged with the latter was Maria Eagle, now Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Her appointment in 2001 saw a significant change to the role of Minister for Disabled People.
“Before I did it, the job was in two places,” she points out. “You had Margaret Hodge in the Department for Education and Employment (DfEE)–doing things like civil rights issues and employment programmes–and then Hugh Bailey, a junior minister in the Department for Social Security (DSS), doing benefits. When the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) was created out of the employment bit of the DfEE and the DSS, those roles came together. I was the first person to go across the board–civil rights, employment support and benefits.”
GOOD TIMES AND BAD
Eagle was Minister for Disabled People for four years, during which time she helped ensure implementation of the European Directive on disability, completed the drafting of what became the DDA 2005, and helped create a 20 year “Forward agenda” focused on Independent Living. “It was a big, exciting time,” she says. “Some of my proudest achievements in government were in that role; not many people can say they implemented their party’s entire manifesto commitment and set a 20 year forward programme.
“In terms of being able to make a difference in a particular job, that’s relatively unusual,” she insists. “I saw disability civil rights and the implementation of the 2005 Act as the last great emancipation we needed for people in this country. The practical reality is another layer on top, but in terms of legal equality, that’s what did the job— something that I am very proud of.”
So what’s on the top of the latest incumbent’s ‘to do’ list? “So many people come to me in my constituency and say: ‘I want to work, but no one will give me a chance’,” Penning tells us. “Two weeks before I got this job, I was asked to join an organisation in my constituency which creates a forum bringing local businesses together with young disabled people. We had 10 young people there; on the day I got this job, I was told that nine now have paid employment. So my biggest priority is going to be working with (my predecessor) Esther McVey, who has gone off to do employment, to help disabled people get into work.”
First published by Access magazine (December 2013) issue.
