Let my Down’s daughter work for less than minimum wage
Diana’s confidante backs idea that landed MP and peer in hot water
ADULTS with learning disabilities should be allowed to work for less than the minimum wage, Princess Diana’s confidante Rosa Monckton has declared.
Miss Monckton, whose 21- year- old daughter Domenica has Down’s syndrome, said it would boost their dignity.
When the idea was previously floated – by a Conservative MP and a peer – there was uproar. They were accused of trampling the human rights of the disabled by suggesting a sub-minimum wage would help them compete in the workplace.
But Miss Monckton said it was ‘ obvious’ that such a move would have a ‘transformative’ effect on those with learning difficulties.
Writing in today’s edition of The Spectator, she lambasted politicians and charities obsessed with ‘ending inequality’ without looking at the real lives of people involved.
Tory MP Philip Davies was castigated in 2011 by suggesting the minimum wage ‘may be more of a hindrance than a help’. He said employers faced with a choice would usually pick an able-bodied candidate. Recalling the reaction to his remarks, Miss Monckton said he had been described as ‘insane’, ‘disgusting’ and ‘like Hitler’ for his suggestion.
Conservative peer Lord Freud was also attacked for expressing support for the idea. Disability charities including Mencap denounced the proposal.
Miss Monckton said: ‘I followed these events with mounting anger. It is so obvious to most parents in my position that a therapeutic exemption from the minimum wage would have a transformative effect.
‘But policy makers seem to live in an abstract world, driven by the idea of “ending inequality” without looking at the real lives of people involved. They obsess on the “human right” of disabled adults to receive the minimum wage.’
She added: ‘This is not about the right to a minimum wage, it is about the right to have the human dignity that comes with work, and with being included.’
Of the 1.4million people with a learning disability, 1.3million are unemployed. Miss Monckton said: ‘Think of the misery that figure represents, the isolation and loneliness. The single thing that makes it most difficult to get people with learning disabilities into work is the ratcheting up of the minimum wage.
‘When they say, “I’ve been to work today”, they look confident and happy.’
From April 1, the minimum wage will rise to £7.50 an hour, or £7.05 for those aged 21 to 24. Miss Monckton, whose friend Princess Diana was godmother to Domenica, also recalled the treatment meted out to Lord Freud in 2014.
Labour demanded his resignation as a minister in the Department for Work and Pensions after he responded positively to a councillor who had asked him about how to help ‘mentally damaged individuals who, to be quite frank, aren’t worth the minimum wage but want to work’.
Labour shadow cabinet minister Angela Eagle called for Lord Freud to be sacked on BBC Question Time, but the audience turned on her.
Last night MP Mr Davies welcomed Miss Monckton’s intervention, saying: ‘I am delighted she is reinforcing my case. We need to have a sensible conversation. The politically correct brigade want to close down the debate.’
Following the backlash in 2011 he got a supportive call
‘Isolation and loneliness’
from a father in Birmingham with a 40-year- old son with Down’s. ‘The consequence of the minimum wage meant he would never get a paid job, but now he had renewed hope,’ he said.
‘That really summed it up, and I don’t regret saying what I said. The minimum wage has helped many low-paid people get a proper wage, but it has for some people put them further away from a job.’