Axed McGuire praised by allies

By Sunil Peck

When Anne McGuire took over as minister for disabled people, she said she wanted to be judged on what she did and how she did it.

Three years on, following the news that she has lost her job in Gordon Brown’s ministerial reshuffle, disabled activists speak of her with an affection and respect at odds with the usual reaction to ministers.

“She was a smashing minister who did a lot for disabled people,” says Sir Bert Massie, former chair of the Disability Rights Commission (DRC). “She understood the disability movement and the importance of human rights and independent living.

“She took through the Life Chances report and sought to help protect the DRC’s work when the Equality and Human Rights Commission was being established. She had to work within the constraints of any other minister but she really understood the agenda.”

Fellow activist Rachel Hurst, director of Disability Awareness in Action, calls McGuire’s move “tragic”.

“She really understood the idea that disabled people should have their own voice. She really wanted to take forward the [UN] convention and she was making every effort to do so.”

McGuire was also the first minister for disabled people to be a disabled person herself (she has diabetes).

But it was the combination of McGuire’s personality and passion for disability rights that impressed Julie Newman, chair of the UK’s Disabled People’s Council. “I respected her and felt she respected me. She worked hard to listen to us. She set up meetings and consulted actively. It wasn’t a paper exercise; she interacted with us and took seriously what we considered to be our major issues.”

Nick Danagher, a disability equality consultant and former co-chair and executive director of the National Centre for Independent Living, also talks fondly of the rapport that McGuire established with disabled people. “She was always visible and available to talk to people. She listened to what people had to say,” he says.

Danagher says that because McGuire attended user-led events, like NCIL’s AGM and events staged by local disabled people’s groups, she won people’s trust. “It was obvious that she was genuinely working hard while being up against some difficult barriers in government to put our agenda on the table.”

The disabled Labour MP Anne Begg says McGuire “will be missed”. “I’m really sad that Anne has gone because I thought that she was doing a great job. She has survived two reshuffles and it’s a shame that she’s no longer there.”

McGuire told Disability Now that she has been “overwhelmed” by the kind messages she has received from disabled people and says that her time as minister for disabled people was the most rewarding of her 11-year ministerial career.

As for her legacy, she points to the signing of the UN Convention, the government’s independent living strategy, and a wider recognition that disabled people should be “judged on what they can do and not for what they can not.”

And she says she hopes she contributed to “maintaining the momentum towards equality for disabled people”.