McFadden and Alexander keep their jobs, but Burnham replaces social care ministers

Several senior ministers who will play key roles in disability policy over the next few months have kept their jobs under new prime minister Andy Burnham.

Burnham’s decision to keep Pat McFadden in post as work and pensions secretary caused particular anxiety and concern among many disabled activists.

McFadden has been closely associated with the push to increase pressure on disabled people to work, including those with significant levels of mental distress.

But he has also failed to recognise the contributions disabled people who are unable to work make to their communities, and that work and work-related pressure can be harmful, particularly to those with experience of mental distress.

He has also been criticised for making misleading statements to MPs about the government’s reforms, including to the Commons work and pensions committee.

Last December, he bragged about cutting disabled people’s support – by halving the health element of universal credit for most new claimants – three days after launching a child poverty strategy which warned that more than a million children in families where someone was disabled were living in “deep material poverty”.

Earlier this month, in a foreword to his department’s annual report, he chose to focus on the “growing numbers signed off and written off on long-term sickness and disability benefits”, even though the report revealed that the number of deaths of benefit claimants investigated by his Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) through its system of secret reviews nearly doubled last year.

Sir Stephen Timms, the minister for social security and disability, has kept his job, with key reforms to personal independence payment and Access to Work due to be announced in the next few months.

His role as an equalities minister has moved to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), while he also remains as a DWP minister.

This is because Burnham has ordered the Office for Equality and Opportunity, which includes the low-profile Disability Unit, to move to MHCLG from the Cabinet Office, the government confirmed this morning (Thursday).

Another senior minister to keep their role was transport secretary Heidi Alexander, whose railways bill is proceeding through the House of Lords, with accessible transport campaigners calling for the legislation to include far stronger measures on accessibility and disability rights.

But health and social care secretary Wes Streeting has been shifted to the post of defence secretary and replaced by former foreign secretary (and former New Labour work and pensions secretary) Yvette Cooper.

Cooper will oversee reform of adult social care (see separate story), although it is not yet clear who will take on the care minister role following the promotion of Stephen Kinnock to Welsh secretary.

The role will likely go to Dame Diana Johnson, Karin Smyth or Alison McGovern.

The Department of Health and Social Care said this morning (Thursday) that Kinnock’s replacement had not yet been announced.

One Burnham appointment that is likely to be welcomed by many disabled campaigners is that of disabled MP Vicky Foxcroft, a popular former shadow minister for disabled people, as a minister in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.

Foxcroft resigned as a government whip last year over plans to cut billions of pounds a year from personal independence payment.

Linda Burnip, co-founder of Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), said that Burnham’s initial series of announcements (see separate stories) “sounds good” but with “McFadden at DWP and Cooper as secretary of state for health and social care I’m not going to hold my breath to see whether any of these things actually happen”.

Ben Golightly, from DPAC Cymru, said that “a fresh PM and a ministerial reshuffle means an opportunity for the UK government to reset its relationship with disabled people, change its approach and start genuinely listening”, although he described Burnham as “a political chameleon”.

He added: “The choice to appoint Stephen Kinnock as secretary of state for Wales will be particularly disappointing for disabled people.

“As a minister for the Department of Health and Social Care, Stephen Kinnock invited so-called experts in ‘overdiagnosis’ to meet with him and made comments about mental health described as ‘unfounded and harmful’ by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. 

“When a group of young DPAC Cymru members wrote to him about their concerns, and spent two weeks asking for an informal meeting, they got no response.”

Rachel Reeves, who has been widely disliked by disabled activists since she said 11 years ago in an interview that Labour was “not the party of people on benefits” and was “a party of working people, formed for and by working people”, has been sacked as chancellor.

Reeves, who made a series of unpopular announcements and misleading statements on social security during her two years as chancellor, has been replaced by former defence secretary John Healey.

When he was shadow housing secretary under Jeremy Corbyn in 2019, Healey failed to set any targets for accessible housing as Labour announced plans for the “biggest overall affordable housebuilding programme since the 1960s” if it won power.

The disabled women’s organisation WinVisible was particularly critical of Burnham’s choice of Healey as the new chancellor as he resigned from Sir Keir Starmer’s cabinet earlier this year over calls for a larger defence budget.

WinVisible said this “shows that warfare is still the priority, despite Burnham’s pronouncements about cost of living and care for people”, when the military budget “is already double what is spent on adult social care”.

There was also disappointment from WinVisible at “pro-cuts McFadden” staying at the DWP and “dismay” that Shabana Mahmood was staying as home secretary as her “anti-immigrant policies are an incitement to violence against traumatised asylum-seeking and refugee women”, many of whom are disabled.

Angela Rayner will return to government as secretary of state for housing, communities and local government.

She is likely to come under pressure from disabled campaigners to put right the government’s “truly horrifying” betrayal of disabled people which saw it slash a vital accessible housing target proposed by the last Conservative government.

Bridget Phillipson has been sacked as education secretary but will remain in the cabinet as minister for women and equalities.

She will be replaced by Lucy Powell, a close ally of Andy Burnham.

Georgia Gould, the minister in charge of the government’s controversial special educational needs (SEN) reforms, remains in post.

Picture: (From left to right) Stephen Timms, Heidi Alexander and Pat McFadden