What’s the point of a minister for disabled people?

After a week in limbo – the longest spell without a minister for disabled people in 30 years – it seems we finally have our champion! Sort of.

Mims Davies has taken on the downgraded role. The previous incumbent, Tom Pursglove, held the rank of minister of state. Davies is a step below that on the greasy pole. She’s a lowly parliamentary undersecretary of state, and she will also have other responsibilities. Davies has confirmed that she will have a “continued focus on social mobility”, which isn’t exactly a minor issue itself.

Cue outrage from disability charities, lobby groups and some prominent personalities. Me among them? Well, no. I confess, my response was to shrug and say “meh”. Because, does this even matter? Is there any point in the job of minister for disabled people in its current form?

Before friends, colleagues and people working in the sector whom I like and respect jump on me, let me explain. I quite understand why they’ve been shouting and screaming about this. Leaving us without a minister first, and then downgrading the job, sends a pretty unpleasant message. It says: “You don’t count, and we don’t care.” I also get that it’s handy for the organisations representing us to have a door to knock on.

But let me ask a question: what have any of the incumbents, who’ve rarely lasted for more than a year in the post (Pursglove managed that, which I guess counts as an achievement), done for us over the last 10 years?

Sure, there have been some grandiose announcements. A national disability strategy, which then got stalled in the courts. An action plan that seems stuck in the weeds of consultation. Regional panels set up to advise on policy. Except that their members don’t get paid, and advice you don’t pay for isn’t worth a hill of beans.

There is now a move to force some of the sickest and most disabled people in the country to stagger into job coaches’ offices so they can discuss what they can do workwise. This is secretary of state Mel Stride’s big idea to tackle the shortages in the labour market. Did Pursglove not see a problem here? Did he not see the potential firestorm that will inevitably result?

Meanwhile, here are some of the issues that have affected me as a disabled person in the past year: having to battle through a bureaucratic and ableist swamp created by a hospital before accessing treatment. Being repeatedly abused when I use a wheelchair to exercise. Having disabled tickets for a concert given away by the venue before the show went ahead. Having to battle to book seats in the first place. Having to hang around while Underground staff see if there is “someone available” to assist before using the Tube. Getting parking tickets because of councils randomly removing disabled spaces.

That is just a partial list specific to me. Other people could, I’m sure, add plenty of issues of their own.

Some of this is just blatant discrimination, which is part of the disabled person’s everyday reality. But I’ve not seen a minister for disabled people jumping in to tackle that, either. Perhaps it is because they feel there’s just too much of it? Perhaps it is because none of the recent occupants of this post have actually been disabled.

“My dad lived with head injury for over 25 years, as a result we were on benefits. I was the charities minister & have co-chaired the APPG for carers & this has been a passion of mine, I’ve been at DWP since July 2019 & I know the teams, policymakers & JCPs. Be assured I get it,” Davies tweeted.

I’m sorry, but I believe there’s a limit to how much you can know until you’ve had people scream filthy words at you while you’re just wheeling home of an evening, or threaten to take a swing at you while you’re out exercising, you really don’t.

What’s needed is an actual disabled person in the job. Except that you’re more likely to find a snow leopard in the Sahara than you are to find one of us in an MP’s office.

Here’s the government’s Equalities Office on that subject: “The speaker’s Conference on Representation has pointed out that the House of Commons would include 130 disabled MPs if it were to be representative of the UK population. Even if a more restrictive notion of disability was used, only including major impairments, we should expect to see 65 disabled MPs. Yet, after the general election in 2015 there were only three MPs who declared or were publicly identified as being disabled, which increased to five after the 2017 general election.”

This does rather help to explain why disabled people’s issues are so poorly understood, so rarely discussed, and why the ministerial portfolio is such a lowly one.

If the job of minister for disabled people were to be worthwhile, it would not be placed in its traditional home of the Department for Work and Pensions, the job of which is to administer benefits. It would reside in the Cabinet Office, working across government, where it would be backed by a team of disabled civil servants with the necessary expertise to provide high-quality policy advice.

As it is, the minister for disabled people is basically there so the government can pretend it cares.