Tory backbencher Philip Davies caused outrage today by telling Parliament that disabled people should work for less than the minimum wage, reports Shamik Das.
Tory backbencher Philip Davies caused outrage today by telling Parliament that disabled people should work for less than the minimum wage. The remarks were described as “outrageous and unacceptable” by a select committee chair, and “a preposterous suggestion” by a leading charity. Davies made his comments during a debate on the Employment Opportunities Bill, which had its second reading today.
Anne Begg, chair of the work and pensions committe, said:
“These comments are utterly outrageous and unacceptable. To suggest that disabled people should be treated as second class citizens is shocking and shows just what a warped world some Tories demonstrate they inhabit.”
Davies also said people with learning difficulties should be made to work for sub-standard wages – made to work for less than £5.93 an hour.
Responding, Mind spokeswoman Sophie Corlett said:
“It is a preposterous suggestion that someone who has a mental health problem should be prepared to accept less than minimum wage to get their foot in the door with an employer.
“People with mental health problems should not be considered a source of cheap labour and should be paid appropriately for the jobs they do.”
Last month, Davies described Britain’s contribution to international aid as “stark raving mad”; more sinister were his recent comments that there was nothing offensive about ‘blacking up’.
Davies had said:
“Why it is so offensive to black up your face… I have never understood this.”
As I said before, what a sad, pathetic little man Mr Davies is.
98 Responses to “Tory MP: Disabled should work for less than minimum wage”
Anon E Mouse
Leon Wolfson – Agreed….
Mason Dixon, Autistic – I’m not the one making the point. As I said, I heard it on the radio.
You are the one making an issue of it.
If you think it’s OK to pay people with disabilities less then that’s up to you.
Personally I don’t treat people based on their disabilities and can only see them as equal providing they are both doing the same job.
If you think (and can personally excuse the fact) it’s OK to pay people differing rates depending on their abilities / disabilities that’s up to you. I’ve worked with the disabled and can tell you they don’t get a fair deal in this country but I won’t argue if you think they do.
I don’t accept the statistic. Equal pay for equal jobs I say.
Sorry Mason Dixon, Autistic but that’s how I feel…
George McLean
@18. Mr Jabberwock
It is not an “irrational prejudice” to ask whether Mr Davies’s position entails other groups that are discriminated against in the labour market offering themselves for hire at cut-price rates. It is an anlogy that seeks to expose the fallacy of his view. You yourself with your “err No” appear to accept his position is untenable.
You also appear to characterise my question to Mr Davies as “shrieks of un-thought through PC rhetoric”. You are wrong. Mr Davies opposed the principle of the minimum wage and admitted on Newsnight on Friday 17 June that he had “lost the argument” on it. I infer he would like to see a return to the position where employers paid whatever they could get away with (as do many capitalists and their apologists). Like you (no doubt) I wish to see the NMW vigorously enforced.
But you know as well as I do that Mr Davies’s proposal does not address discrimination against disabled people because it is not designed to. His proposal is designed to undermine the principle of the NMW for all workers. Like all species of discrimination (anti-Black, anti-women …) the aim for capitalists like Mr Davies is to divide the working class.
As for your defence of “rational discrimination”, the duty on an employer broadly is to make reasonable adjustments to facilitate work for disabled people. An employer who does not do so will be liable in the tribunal. Only if there are no adjustments that can reasonably be made will “discrimination” (ie not employing that person at the rate for the job) be acceptable.
Mr Davies should spend even more of his time than he (no doubt) does at present promoting employers who have an enlightened attitude to engaging disabled people rather than using disability as a wedge to crack apart minimum wage legislation.
Mason Dixon, Autistic
Again Mouse you’ve been caught out and had to resort to claiming I expressed views which I haven’t. That is your only consistency.
“Mason Dixon, Autistic – I’m not the one making the point. As I said, I heard it on the radio.
You are the one making an issue of it.”
Ahem-
“I disagree with your excuse for this body to pay the disabled less, as they clearly do. I do not care if it is a small amount – they should be setting an example. “
Mason Dixon, Autistic
“Sorry Mason Dixon, Autistic but that’s how I feel…”
People have feelings. Trolls are liars and liars aren’t people. You don’t have feelings.
Anon E Mouse
Mason Dixon, Autistic – I AGREE WITH YOU ABOUT THIS CHARACTER BUT I ALSO THINK THERE SHOULD BE NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE RATES OF PAY WHICH ARE DEPENDANT ON A PERSON’S DISABILITIES.
IN YOUR POST 11 YOU SAY: “These are tiny differences compared to the pay nationwide pay gaps the Commission publishes reports on.” I DON’T CARE IF THEY ARE TINY – I WANT THEM TO BE THE SAME.
WHY ARE YOU BEING PERSONALLY ABUSIVE Mason Dixon, Autistic? STOP BEING RUDE PLEASE.
IT’S WHAT YOU SAID. I DO NOT EXCUSE THE DIFFERENCE AND BELIEVE PEOPLE SHOULD BE TREATED EQUALLY….