National Disabled Police Association

Philip Davies, the MP for Shipley, claimed people with disabilities or mental health problems were at a disadvantage because they could not offer to work for less money. Philip Davies: the minimum wage is not helping disabled people Relaxing the law would help some disabled people to compete more effectively for jobs in “the real world” in which they are “by definition” less productive than workers without disabilities, he claimed. The remarks stunned both Labour and Tory MPs and provoked a furious response from charities and equality campaigners, who condemned Mr Davies’s “insulting” suggestion as “absolutely outrageous”. During a Parliamentary debate, Mr Davies told MPs that the minimum wage of £5.93 per hour meant disabled people who wanted to work found the door being “closed in their face”. “The people who are most disadvantaged by the national minimum wage are the most vulnerable in society,” he said. “My concern about it is it prevents those people from being given the opportunity to get the first rung on the employment ladder.”