Looking out for the disabled

As I mentioned in a previous post, Lord Freud has apologised unreservedly for comments he made about employing disabled workers. He was right to do so.

But we should also recognise that Lord Freud, who does not claim a ministerial salary, has been a passionate advocate of getting disabled people back into work, particularly those with mental health problems, although as he himself has admitted he should not have accepted the premise of the question asked at the party conference event and his words have offended many people.

Conservatives have a proud record of helping disabled people:

· The number of disabled people in employment is up 116,000 this year alone, meaning many more disabled people have the security of a job because of our long-term economic plan.

· Conservative MPs forced through Parliament, against the then Labour Government’s opposition, the Autism Act 2009, the first piece of legislation on a specific disability in British history.

· It was John Major and William Hague who delivered the first Disability Discrimination Act in 1995, giving disabled people legal protection against discrimination at work and in the provision of services.

There is a very interesting article by Lord Tebbit in the Daily Telegraph on the subject of Labour's ambush of Lord Freud which you can read can read here at

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/normantebbit/100289522/ed-milibands-hypocrisy-over-lord-freud-is-an-attempt-to-cover-his-own-inadequacy/

Lord Tebbit does not think paying disabled people less than the minimum wage is the best solution to the problem that the minimum wage can price them out of work, but he realises that this a very real issue which those who genuinely care about the needs of disabled people should want to address. As he puts it

"To say that someone is 'not worth £6 an hour' was clumsy and open to willful misunderstanding. My wife was capable of earning her pay as an experienced nurse until the sadistic criminals of IRA/Sinn Fein crippled her. She is worth no less today, but she could not justify a pay rate of £6 an hour.

What was put to Lord Freud was the suggestion that rather than denying work to people either mentally or physically impaired, we should consider paying them less than the minimum wage.

In my view that would undermine the whole concept of a minimum wage. Better by far to look at the possibility of finding assistants to such people who could raise their productivity. They could be paid not by the employer, but by a welfare agency. Or we could seek out niche jobs where they could be as good, if not better than, other workers.

Years ago when I was Secretary of State for Employment we found that some learning-disabled people really enjoyed repetitive work such as singling and potting-on seedlings. Many youngsters who might otherwise have been condemned to a life of unemployment came to know the dignity and fellowship of work in such work.

In other words, Lord Freud was mulling over how to help such people, just as I did in my time. His error was not to assume that an undercover, eavesdropping Labour Party employee would be listening, not to help the disabled but to help Mr Miliband.

That was what led to the sickening display of hypocrisy and the exploitation of the difficulties of disabled people in an effort to cover up Mr Miliband's inadequacies in his own job."

As is often the case, Norman Tebbit is absolutely right.