Holding the line

Jonathan Shaw (pictured), the new minister for disabled people, says he wants to be judged on what he does, not on what he’s done in the past. Sunil Peck starts the judging

The UK is heading for the most severe economic downturn since the early 1980s, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Unemployment, it says, is likely to rise to more than eight per cent by the end of 2009.

But Jonathan Shaw, the new minister for disabled people, is holding the government line on incapacity benefit reform, even though disabled activists continue to challenge it and businesses are going to the wall every day.

Shaw says he is determined to help more disabled people find work and insists there are “tens of thousands”
of jobs unfilled, even though he accepts unemployment is rising.

Campaigners fear the government’s welfare reforms, which include private companies being paid according to the number of disabled people they find work for, will create an incentive for giving the most support to people with fewer support needs, or that people will feel forced to take up unsuitable jobs for fear of losing their benefits.

Shaw insists that benefits will not be taken away if people have problems finding work during an economic downturn. He rules out a return to the policy of the 1980s when unemployed disabled people were placed on incapacity benefit and, as he puts it, “forgotten about”.

“I was speaking to some people just recently about North Lanarkshire Council, which has been very successful in getting disabled people into work, and they launched their programme when the Ravenscraig steelworks closed. They still were able to get more disabled people into work.”

But Shaw does acknowledge that the government has not done enough to help disabled people with higher support needs find work.

“One of the key tests of our reforms and programmes will be getting people with fluctuating conditions into work,” he says, and mentions a pilot scheme the government is developing with Mind.

The government, he says, has doubled Access to Work funding and introduced the Employability programme to promote the benefits of employing disabled people to employers. He also says that he regularly meets business leaders as minister for the south east, so he can evangelise about the benefits of employing disabled people to key figures.

“I cannot express enough how resolute I am in the belief that we do not now divert from our course. There will be no let up in promoting the cause of getting disabled people work,” he says.

Shaw, MP for Chatham and Aylesford, was previously a minister in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. He is a former social worker and was also a support worker for adults with learning difficulties. So how will his experience of working with disabled people influence how he approaches his new brief?

“Any experience that is relevant to a job that you do in government is of benefit. I was a support worker for a number of years in residential homes and so I have been very much at the coal face in terms of supporting [disabled] people so yes, that is of value. But I will be judged not on what I have done, I will be judged on what I do.”

As well as tackling unemployment, Shaw says it is essential to take power from the state and allow disabled people to make informed choices about their care and support.

A couple of days before our meeting, he announced that disabled people would be involved in monitoring the roll-out of the government’s independent living strategy – an announcement that was welcomed by campaigners such as Baroness (Jane) Campbell – and he tells me they will also have a role in influencing the development of key policy areas, such as transport.

But although the government has made progress towards empowering disabled people, activists have questioned its failure to commit to ratifying in full the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Why, they ask, is the government dithering when other countries have already ratified the convention?

Shaw blames the delay on how long it has taken government departments to examine the implications of the convention on existing laws, and says there is still an “enormous gap” between the aspirations of the convention and the reality of what it would mean.

He says the UK will ratify this spring, but is likely to opt out of several areas. The most contentious opt out is probably the commitment to phasing out special schools and developing a fully inclusive education system. Campaigners say there is no need for an opt out because the convention does not set a time limit on when special schools should be abolished.

Shaw points out that the government has reduced the number of special schools since 1997, but still defends them as an important part of the education system.

“At the moment we have special schools and they are the choice of many parents for their children. There are fewer than there were, but the children’s department believes that they are a necessary part of the provision we offer to parents.”

When pressed on whether he would be happy for his own children to be sent to school hundreds of miles away, Shaw refuses to answer “personal questions”. But he reiterates his belief that parents should have a choice about where their disabled children are educated.

He also repeats the government line that there are no plans to extend winter fuel payments to severely disabled people under 60, despite government figures that show nearly 100,000 households containing a disabled person where more than ten per cent of income is spent on fuel.

“Bluntly, we do what we can within the resources that we have. We did announce in the Pre-Budget Report that there would be additional allowances this winter for many people in receipt of disability benefits, including carers.”

Where does Shaw stand on disabled people’s frustrations at the failure of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) to campaign for disability rights as vociferously as the Disability Rights Commission did?

He concedes that it has taken time for the EHRC to find its feet. But he says a report on the bullying of disabled people in the workplace is an example of its valuable work.

“Work is such an important part of the agenda for disabled people. We want people to stay in work and to work in an environment where they can develop their careers, not one where they are bullied.”