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Wednesday 19 December 2018 | UK News feed


Philip Davies: Let disabled workers opt out of the minimum wage

Downing Street has moved to protect the Prime Minister from a torrent of criticism after a senior Conservative suggested that people with disabilities should be paid less than the minimum wage.

By Tim Ross and Robert Winnett

7:31PM BST 17 Jun 2011

Philip Davies, the MP for Shipley, claimed people with disabilities or mental health problems were at a disadvantage because they could not offer to work for less money. Philip Davies: the minimum wage is not helping disabled people

Relaxing the law would help some disabled people to compete more effectively for jobs in “the real world” in which they are “by definition” less productive than workers without disabilities, he claimed.

The remarks stunned both Labour and Tory MPs and provoked a furious response from charities and equality campaigners, who condemned Mr Davies’s “insulting” suggestion as “absolutely outrageous”.


Mr Davies said that during a visit to the charity Mind, he spoke to people with mental health problems who viewed it as “inevitable” that someone without such difficulties would be offered a job ahead of them.

“Given that some of those people with a learning disability clearly, by definition, can't be as productive in their work as somebody who hasn't got a disability of that nature, then it was inevitable that given that the employer was going to have to pay them both the same they were going to take on the person who was going to be more productive, less of a risk, and that was doing those people a huge disservice.”

A spokesman for the Conservatives insisted that Mr Davies’ comments “do not reflect the views of the Conservative Party and do not reflect Government policy”.

A Downing Street spokeswoman added: “The Government would reject any suggestion for disabled people to be able to opt out of the national minimum wage.

But the MP’s remarks dismayed disability rights campaigners. Sophie Corlett, from the mental health charity, Mind, described Mr Davies’s suggestion as “preposterous”.

Dame Anne Begg, who heads the Commons work and pensions committee, and uses a wheelchair herself, said Mr Davies’s remarks were “outrageous and unacceptable” and showed the “warped world” some Tories inhabit.

Richard Hawkes, Chief Executive of disability charity Scope, said Mr Davies had “got it seriously wrong”, adding: “We need to challenge employers’ prejudices – not pander to them.”

The MP was also warned that he will be questioned over his remarks by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which is conducting an inquiry into disability-related harassment.

A commission spokesman said the comments showed “a total lack of understanding of the abilities and aspirations of Mr Davies' disabled constituents”.

“Is he arguing that Richard Branson, by definition, is less productive than people who don't have dyslexia? Or that Winston Churchill was unfit to run the country because of his depression?”

However, Mr Davies appeared unrepentant, blaming criticism of his comments on Twitter on “left-wing hysteria”. He later told BBC Radio 4 that disabled people should be allowed to “prove themselves” before moving up the payscale.

UK News

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