Offer to work for below minimum wage –MP’s advice to mentally ill.

By Liz Lockhart

Philip Davies, Tory MP (Shipley), has suggested that people with disabilities or mental health problems should offer themselves for work at below the minimum wage.

He claimed that people with disabilities or mental health problems were disadvantaged in the workplace because they had to compete with able-bodied candidates.

‘My concern about it is it prevents those people from being given the opportunity to get the first rung on the employment ladder’ Davies said.

‘When I went to visit Mind and I spoke to people there that were using the service offered by that charity they were absolutely upfront with me and they said that when they went for a job and they came across a situation where there were other people who had applied for that job, they’ve got mental health problems, other people haven’t, they said to me ‘Who would you take on?’’

‘Because they were quite accepting of the fact it was inevitable that the employer would take on the person who hasn’t got any mental health problems given that they were both going to be having to be paid the same rate’. (Does this paragraph even make sense?)

Senior Tory Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) asked ‘Forget the fact there’s a minimum wage for a moment. Why actually should a disabled person work for less than £5.93 an hour? It’s not a lot of money, is it?’

Mr Davies replied ‘If an employer is looking at two candidates, one who has got disabilities and one who hasn’t, and they have to pay them both the same rate. I invite you to guess which one the employer is more likely to take on’.

‘Whether that is right of wrong, whether you would do that or wouldn’t do, that to me is just the real world that we operate in.’

Today, 17^th June, Mind has responded to this statement by Philip Davies MP on their website.

Mind’s director of external relations, Sophie Corlett says:

‘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.’

‘It is simply unacceptable that fewer than 4 in 10 employers will currently consider employing someone with a mental health problem. We should be trying to educate employers and challenge negative attitudes towards mental health problems rather than forcing people with mental health problems to undercut their way in to the workforce.’

‘Mind has found that over 50% of people with mental health problems are living on a weekly household income of less than £200 – what the Government defines as ‘living on the poverty line.’ Paying people with mental health problems less money than non-disabled people will not help them into work, it will just widen the poverty gap.’

My editor, who knows only too well that I can be overly-opinionated- told me to report on this and comment on our behalf. I dare not. I would, however, like to spend an hour in a room with Mr. Davies – if our MPs are going to perpetuate the stigma of mental health disorder then who can we depend on?