Amy Selman was policy adviser to Boris Johnson when he was Mayor of London from 2010-2016.
The Prime Minister has indicated that the general election will take place towards the end of 2024. There doesn’t seem to be any impetus to run it at the same time as this year’s local, mayoral, and police and crime commissioner elections in May.
This gives Conservative Campaign Headquarters time to organize and fundraise. Many local Associations have selected their Prospective Parliamentary Candidates (PPC), and there is a long list of approved candidates ready to apply for upcoming selections. The final PPC list will be closely examined for its diversity, representation, and class.
Conservatives should do well. The Party has had three female leaders; and more women are applying this year (with necessary help from Women2Win and the Conservative Women’s Organization). MPs from ethnic minority groups are also increasing, and those in leadership positions represent today’s modern Britain, including the Prime Minister.
There are always ways we can improve in selecting candidates who look like the British population. Affiliated party groups help members of their communities to consider entering public life; the Conservative Friends of Bangladesh is a good example, supporting British Bangladeshi councillors across the country. The Tory Reform Group used to support centrist PPCs; groups on the right of the Party certainly do.
There is a cohort though where very little outreach has gone on, from either of the main parties, Conservative and Labour. 24 per cent of the UK’s population today have a disability. This correlates to 130 MPs. In 2024 five MPs are open about having a disability.
This 24 per cent require support, often from family members: 11 per cent of working-age adults are carers (many unpaid, juggling with other jobs and responsibilities). One in three NHS workers are unpaid carers when they get home.
Then there is the paid ecosystem: district nurses, equipment providers, occupational therapists, and physiotherapists. Local councils have significant responsibilities, and a myriad of processes to execute them.
This year, I am part of this invisible world. Since May 2020, I have struggled with my health due to an autoimmune disease, Guillain-Barré Syndrome.
I put my hands up: I was not prepared for how difficult being disabled is – not in terms of health, which it is – but in terms of being a respected citizen. Interactions with state now take up huge swathes of time, from benefits categories to disabled facilities grants to accessing health services.
Some systems seem set up for the applicant to fail; and the bullying and intimidating manner of some staff drives people to withdraw altogether. MPs and their caseworkers will recognise this description.
As a country, we have celebrated disabled people in the 21st Century. The 2012 Paralympic Games called for new, accessible infrastructure. Its atmosphere was electric, and school children in particular were enthralled with the athletes themselves, from Johnnie Peacock and his blade leg to Ellie Simmonds in the pool.
London then hosted the first Invictus Games for injured servicemen, in 2014. Led by Prince Harry, they further cemented public respect for disabled sportsmen and women.
In discussions with the 2012 Paralympic team, they were clear about what would be most useful for the wider disabled community: changes to the planning laws to ensure accessibility became the norm for new homes.
In London, the then-mayor Boris Johnson and Lord Udny-Lister amended the London Plan. They also, with strong property industry support, launched the Built Environment Professional Education project to embed inclusive design into courses taken by new architects and engineers.
This example shows that the disabled community’s asks of government can be both realistic and ambitious. However, the dialogue is fraught. As 2024 begins, the Government’s new Back to Work Plan for those on long-term benefits, is prompting coverage and comment.
Its premise, to help claimants back into work, is laudable; its messaging, reinforcing the idea that there are thousands of workshy fraudsters living on the taxpayer, is not.
There is also concern about the apparent downgrading of the Disabilities brief in government. Iain Dale asked the new appointment, Mims Davies, about this on LBC. She stated that she knew DWP well, so could take the ball and run with it, quickly. That departmental knowledge, often lost in recurrent reshuffles, should help.
And we need her to help. The strivers-versus-shirkers debate is back, in parliament and the media. In the final Budget before a general election, those who believe that statistics of long-term benefit claimants simply need culling, will become ever louder.
The Chancellor is aware of this argument, and of its fallibility. He was, as David Cameron’s first Shadow Minister for Disabled People, responsible for re-thinking Tory policy and messaging in this area. He was Secretary of State for Culture during the Paralympics; at Health he introduced legal entitlement for carers to both a Personal Budget and a Direct Payment.
Most hearteningly, Jeremy Hunt used his 2023 Party Conference speech to reference Churchill’s analogy of the state providing “a ladder everyone can climb but also a safety net below which no-one falls”, to note: “That safety net is paid from tax. And that social contract depends on fairness to those in work alongside compassion to those who are not.”
Maybe we can hope that with the return of Cameron as Foreign Secretary, we may also return to compassionate, centrist Conservatism.
A truly transformative step forward would be to enable people with disabilities to scrutinise and amend legislation in the House of Commons. This does require change in CCHQ: positive discrimination to attract new faces; financial support for candidates as the transport, assistance and accessibility needs are significantly more; reinstating social action projects which demonstrate commitment to community.
From a policy point of view, a manifesto commitment to replace the Access to Elected Office Fund, updated for modern electioneering, would make a difference at all levels. A rethink on how to balance part-time work with benefits, as the current arrangement is more stick than carrot.
(For every pound earned, 55p is removed from Universal Credit. Universal Credit is the yardstick for all other benefits, grants and medical costs; this would trigger an entire reassessment. Claimants can earn £404/month without triggering it.)
With my policy geek hat on, I am thinking how to best reach this quarter of the electorate (a third including carers). As a client of the state, I am hopeful that Conservatives will boost me back onto the ladder of opportunity.
Amy Selman was policy adviser to Boris Johnson when he was Mayor of London from 2010-2016.
The Prime Minister has indicated that the general election will take place towards the end of 2024. There doesn’t seem to be any impetus to run it at the same time as this year’s local, mayoral, and police and crime commissioner elections in May.
This gives Conservative Campaign Headquarters time to organize and fundraise. Many local Associations have selected their Prospective Parliamentary Candidates (PPC), and there is a long list of approved candidates ready to apply for upcoming selections. The final PPC list will be closely examined for its diversity, representation, and class.
Conservatives should do well. The Party has had three female leaders; and more women are applying this year (with necessary help from Women2Win and the Conservative Women’s Organization). MPs from ethnic minority groups are also increasing, and those in leadership positions represent today’s modern Britain, including the Prime Minister.
There are always ways we can improve in selecting candidates who look like the British population. Affiliated party groups help members of their communities to consider entering public life; the Conservative Friends of Bangladesh is a good example, supporting British Bangladeshi councillors across the country. The Tory Reform Group used to support centrist PPCs; groups on the right of the Party certainly do.
There is a cohort though where very little outreach has gone on, from either of the main parties, Conservative and Labour. 24 per cent of the UK’s population today have a disability. This correlates to 130 MPs. In 2024 five MPs are open about having a disability.
This 24 per cent require support, often from family members: 11 per cent of working-age adults are carers (many unpaid, juggling with other jobs and responsibilities). One in three NHS workers are unpaid carers when they get home.
Then there is the paid ecosystem: district nurses, equipment providers, occupational therapists, and physiotherapists. Local councils have significant responsibilities, and a myriad of processes to execute them.
This year, I am part of this invisible world. Since May 2020, I have struggled with my health due to an autoimmune disease, Guillain-Barré Syndrome.
I put my hands up: I was not prepared for how difficult being disabled is – not in terms of health, which it is – but in terms of being a respected citizen. Interactions with state now take up huge swathes of time, from benefits categories to disabled facilities grants to accessing health services.
Some systems seem set up for the applicant to fail; and the bullying and intimidating manner of some staff drives people to withdraw altogether. MPs and their caseworkers will recognise this description.
As a country, we have celebrated disabled people in the 21st Century. The 2012 Paralympic Games called for new, accessible infrastructure. Its atmosphere was electric, and school children in particular were enthralled with the athletes themselves, from Johnnie Peacock and his blade leg to Ellie Simmonds in the pool.
London then hosted the first Invictus Games for injured servicemen, in 2014. Led by Prince Harry, they further cemented public respect for disabled sportsmen and women.
In discussions with the 2012 Paralympic team, they were clear about what would be most useful for the wider disabled community: changes to the planning laws to ensure accessibility became the norm for new homes.
In London, the then-mayor Boris Johnson and Lord Udny-Lister amended the London Plan. They also, with strong property industry support, launched the Built Environment Professional Education project to embed inclusive design into courses taken by new architects and engineers.
This example shows that the disabled community’s asks of government can be both realistic and ambitious. However, the dialogue is fraught. As 2024 begins, the Government’s new Back to Work Plan for those on long-term benefits, is prompting coverage and comment.
Its premise, to help claimants back into work, is laudable; its messaging, reinforcing the idea that there are thousands of workshy fraudsters living on the taxpayer, is not.
There is also concern about the apparent downgrading of the Disabilities brief in government. Iain Dale asked the new appointment, Mims Davies, about this on LBC. She stated that she knew DWP well, so could take the ball and run with it, quickly. That departmental knowledge, often lost in recurrent reshuffles, should help.
And we need her to help. The strivers-versus-shirkers debate is back, in parliament and the media. In the final Budget before a general election, those who believe that statistics of long-term benefit claimants simply need culling, will become ever louder.
The Chancellor is aware of this argument, and of its fallibility. He was, as David Cameron’s first Shadow Minister for Disabled People, responsible for re-thinking Tory policy and messaging in this area. He was Secretary of State for Culture during the Paralympics; at Health he introduced legal entitlement for carers to both a Personal Budget and a Direct Payment.
Most hearteningly, Jeremy Hunt used his 2023 Party Conference speech to reference Churchill’s analogy of the state providing “a ladder everyone can climb but also a safety net below which no-one falls”, to note: “That safety net is paid from tax. And that social contract depends on fairness to those in work alongside compassion to those who are not.”
Maybe we can hope that with the return of Cameron as Foreign Secretary, we may also return to compassionate, centrist Conservatism.
A truly transformative step forward would be to enable people with disabilities to scrutinise and amend legislation in the House of Commons. This does require change in CCHQ: positive discrimination to attract new faces; financial support for candidates as the transport, assistance and accessibility needs are significantly more; reinstating social action projects which demonstrate commitment to community.
From a policy point of view, a manifesto commitment to replace the Access to Elected Office Fund, updated for modern electioneering, would make a difference at all levels. A rethink on how to balance part-time work with benefits, as the current arrangement is more stick than carrot.
(For every pound earned, 55p is removed from Universal Credit. Universal Credit is the yardstick for all other benefits, grants and medical costs; this would trigger an entire reassessment. Claimants can earn £404/month without triggering it.)
With my policy geek hat on, I am thinking how to best reach this quarter of the electorate (a third including carers). As a client of the state, I am hopeful that Conservatives will boost me back onto the ladder of opportunity.