• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • About DNS
  • Subscribe to DNS
  • Advertise with DNS
  • Support DNS
  • Contact DNS

Disability News Service

the country's only news agency specialising in disability issues

  • Home
  • Independent Living
    • Arts, Culture and Sport
    • Crime
    • Education
    • Employment
    • Housing
    • Transport
  • Activism & Campaigning
  • Benefits & Poverty
  • Politics
  • Human Rights
You are here: Home / News Archive / Lib Dems would scrap disabled people’s minister

Lib Dems would scrap disabled people’s minister

By guest on 30th October 2009 Category: News Archive

Listen

Liberal Democrat plans to cut costs across government would mean there would be no minister for disabled people if they won power at the general election.

Nick Clegg, the party leader, outlined the move as part of his plans for delivering “better politics for less”.

Clegg says a Liberal Democrat government would save £1.82 billion by “reforms that cut back waste in central government and the Houses of Parliament, making vital savings that can be ploughed back into more important public services”.

His plans would see the number of government departments cut from 24 to 14, the number of ministers reduced by nearly half to 73, and the number of ministers within the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) cut from five to four.

This would mean there would no longer be a minister for disabled people, a post currently held by Jonathan Shaw, but a new post of minister of state for work and disabled people.

A Liberal Democrat spokesman defended the move, saying that Shaw is also the minister of state for the south east.

He said: “Labour has often appointed a minister, commissioner or independent body when it has wanted to give the appearance that it is acting on an issue despite little real change. 

“In this instance, it is especially difficult to take the government’s commitment seriously when the minister of state for disabled people is also the minister of state for the south east in his spare time.

“We need ministers to take effective action for disabled people across government, not just token gestures.”

But Mark Harper, the Conservative shadow minister for disabled people, said it was vital to have a minister for disabled people so there was someone who can “talk with colleagues across government to make sure that all policies properly take into account any particular requirements disabled people have, not just those in the DWP”.

Harper said the post showed how importantly a government treats disability issues.

5 October 2009

Share this post:

TwitterFacebookWhatsAppReddit

Related

‘Muddled’ blue badge reforms ‘are to blame for renewal delays’
6th February 2015
UN debate will be reminder of true inclusive education
6th February 2015
IDS breaks pledge on PIP waiting-times, as tens of thousands still queue for months
30th January 2015

Primary Sidebar

Access

Latest Stories

DPOs ‘shocked and dismayed’ over survey, as government faces threat of legal action

Philippa Day: Secret DWP report reveals errors ‘that led to disabled mum’s death’

Philippa Day: Capita made changes to PIP assessments after young mum’s death

Philippa Day: DWP civil servant denies PIP ‘culture of scepticism’

Silence from police chiefs over face mask exemptions, despite gap in guidance

Call for urgent immigration action over care worker shortage

Documentary exposes hostility… and a need for widespread change in attitudes

Statistics regulator refuses to push DWP over impact of universal credit

Philippa Day: Young mother ‘took her own life after being told to attend PIP assessment’

Philippa Day: DWP phone agent ignored sobbing claimant who later ‘took her own life’

Advice and Information

DWP: The case for the prosecution

Readspeaker

Footer

The International Standard Serial Number for Disability News Service is: ISSN 2398-8924

  • Accessibility Statement
  • Privacy Policy
  • Site map
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2021 Disability News Service

Site development by A Bright Clear Web