The 14 DWP ministers – past and present – facing ‘punishment’ at the ballot box

Up to 14 current and former disability ministers, employment ministers and work and pensions secretaries could lose their seats at tomorrow’s election, giving disabled voters the chance to “punish” them for 14 years of cuts, misery, and countless deaths.

Of the 11 Conservative MPs who spent time as minister for disabled people between 2010 and 2024, eight will be standing at the general election*.

Of the 11 employment ministers – with many of them responsible for key decisions on the hated work capability assessment – seven will be standing at the election (including Esther McVey and Mims Davies, who were also ministers for disabled people).

And of nine former secretaries of state for work and pensions, six will be standing* (including McVey, who also served as minister for disabled people and employment minister).

This means there will be 18 Conservative candidates who could be punished at the ballot box for actions at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) that have harmed disabled people, with one website – run by consultancy Electoral Calculus – predicting that 14 of them will lose their seats.

Former ministers for disabled people Maria Miller, Esther McVey, Mark Harper, Justin Tomlinson, Penny Mordaunt and Tom Pursglove could all lose their seats, although Claire Coutinho and Mims Davies are likely to retain their seats.

Former employment ministers Julie Marson, Victoria Prentis and Guy Opperman (as well as McVey) could all lose their seats, while Priti Patel and Damian Hinds (and Davies) are likely to retain theirs.

And former DWP secretaries of state Mel Stride, Therese Coffey, Damian Green, Stephen Crabb and Iain Duncan Smith (as well as McVey) are also at risk of defeat.

Electoral Calculus has predicted that not one former work and pensions secretary from the last 14 years of Conservative-led governments will survive the cull, while just two former ministers for disabled people (Davies and Coutinho) and three former employment ministers (Patel, Hinds and Davies) will be re-elected.

Paula Peters is a member of the national steering group of Disabled People Against Cuts, which has fought against cuts implemented by successive Conservative-led governments since 2010.

She said disabled people had “the opportunity to punish” the former ministers at the ballot box after “14 years of brutal Tory austerity, which has and continues to have a catastrophic impact on disabled people’s lives”.

She particularly highlighted Duncan Smith, Stride, Coffey, McVey, Harper and Miller, who was the coalition’s first minister for disabled people in 2010 and is standing for re-election in Basingstoke.

Peters said: “Punish them for benefit sanctions; the horrendous disability assessments, universal credit and human rights abuses.

“There are tens of thousands of disabled people no longer with us today as a result of austerity. We must never forget the tragic human cost.”

But she added: “On 5 July we must continue to campaign to hold the new government’s feet to the fire for an independent benefit deaths inquiry and continue the fight for equality and social justice.”

John McArdle, co-founder of the disabled people’s grassroots group Black Triangle, which has been exposing the damage caused by DWP ministers for 14 years, said: “All of these candidates have caused incalculable harm to disabled people in Britain, whether by their conscious acts, their wilful implementation of policies which have led directly to avoidable harm and countless avoidable deaths of claimants, or by their omissions in presiding over systems and policies that have been explicitly exposed by coroners, civil society organisations and the United Nations without any attempt to safeguard the lives, dignity and human rights of our people.

“The only just outcome of this election will be that all of them are summarily dismissed this Friday.”

But McArdle said disabled activists would “continue to pursue some of them through the courts to bring them to account for what we allege is their criminal behaviour [misconduct in public office].

“Let this be a warning also to any incoming politicians. You will not play fast and loose with our lives and human rights with impunity.

“We will never desist or leave any stone unturned, nor avenue unexplored, with which to hold you to account.

“There may be an end to your term of office but there is no statute of limitations on your guilt.”

Ian Jones, one of the founders of the WOWcampaign, which has been campaigning against successive Conservative-led governments’ “war on welfare” for more than 11 years, said: “Whilst there may be some satisfaction in seeing them lose their seats, they will not have been unseated because of the way they targeted disabled people.

“Until disability discrimination becomes unacceptable, there is every chance they will be replaced by another chancer who sees disabled people as unworthy and an easy target.”

Michelle Maher, another co-founder of the WOWcampaign, said: “I’ll be delighted if any of the ministers who have made our lives unbearable over 14 years lose their seats.

“It will be a great relief to see the Tories losing their seats because of their poisonous ongoing 14 years of demonisation, inhumanity and cruel humiliation over the last 14 years.”

She said disabled benefit claimants had starved to death, there had been numerous suicides, and the government had repeatedly refused to carry out an impact assessment of all the cuts it had made to disability support, while disabled people had been “othered and marginalised”.

Claire Glasman, from WinVisible, said she would be “glad to see the back of all the Tory ministers who have viciously attacked our survival, before, during and after Covid.

“But instead of being punished, they usually move to high-paid jobs, cashing in on their connections from government.”

She said WinVisible would continue to reject any politicians, including those from Labour, “attacking sick, disabled and/or immigrant people, which is inciting heavy harassment and violence against us, including immigrant women of colour in our group”.

*Mims Davies is standing in East Grinstead, Uckfield and villages; Tom Pursglove is standing in Corby and East Northamptonshire; Claire Coutinho is standing in East Surrey; Justin Tomlinson is standing in Swindon North; Penny Mordaunt is standing in Portsmouth North; Mark Harper is standing in Forest of Dean; Esther McVey is standing in Tatton; Maria Miller is standing in Basingstoke; Priti Patel is standing in Witham; Damian Hinds is standing in East Hampshire; Julie Marson is standing in Hertford and Stortford; Victoria Prentis is standing in Banbury; Guy Opperman is standing in Hexham; Mel Stride is standing in Central Devon; Therese Coffey is standing in Suffolk Coastal; Damian Green is standing in Ashford, Hawkinge and The Downs; Stephen Crabb is standing in Mid and South Pembrokeshire; and Iain Duncan Smith is standing in Chingford and Woodford Green

**The Department, DNS editor John Pring’s book on DWP and how its actions led to countless deaths of disabled people in the post-2010 era, will be published by Pluto Press on 20 August. Visit the DNS website before publication for a 50 per cent discount 

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