The Labour MP John McDonnell’s representation of the people (members’ job share) bill had its first reading in the Commons this week, and has secured cross-party backing.

The bill would allow two people from the same political party to stand for a parliamentary constituency as a joint team, and would open up the possibility of becoming an MP to many disabled people who might not be able to cope with a full-time role.

Among those backing the bill is the disabled Labour MP Dame Anne Begg, who was vice-chair of the speaker’s conference on parliamentary representation, which reported two years ago on ways to increase the number of disabled, female and minority ethnic MPs.

Other supportive MPs include the Green MP Caroline Lucas, Conservative MP Robert Halfon and Jon Cruddas, the influential MP who is heading Labour’s policy review.

McDonnell told MPs this week that disabled people’s organisations had “expressed the view that there are some people whose particular conditions mean that, although they wish to serve as MPs, they physically would be unable to do so on a full-time basis”, while groups representing women and carers had made similar points.

He said job sharing was now a reality “in virtually every walk of life” and that the Commons “should not be the last bastion standing against a measure that could increase access for women and, in particular, for carers and people with disabilities”.

But the Conservative MP David Nuttall said the idea was “outrageous” and that “a parliament made up of Tweedledees and Tweedledums would open up a constitutional can of worms”.

He said: “The proposal starts off as a politically correct attempt to increase diversity, but ends up as a potentially dangerous attempt at constitutional meddling that would break the historical link between an MP and their constituency.”

Although campaigners have been calling for the law to be changed to allow job share MPs since the 1990s, the latest push has come from Disability Politics UK, a group of disabled campaigners.

Deborah King, co-founder of Disability Politics UK, who herself attempted to stand as a job share parliamentary candidate at the last election and helped shape the bill, and has also set up a petition to call for a change in the law, said such legislation would “help us get more disabled MPs into parliament”.

She said the move was particularly important because there had been “such a lot of legislation that has severely affected disabled people, particularly under the coalition”, but there were only a small handful of disabled MPs able to speak in Commons debates from their own lived experience.

Sir Bert Massie, the former chair of the Disability Rights Commission, who is also backing the bill, said: “Policies approved by parliament need to be informed by first-hand experience of the lives of the people they affect.

“That is why the House of Commons needs to be more representative and to have more disabled MPs.”

The bill’s second reading is expected next week.

22 November 2012

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

The Labour MP Tom Clarke said the “outrageous” decision to stop council-funded residents claiming the mobility component of DLA – due to come into force in October 2012 – had caused “uproar” among disabled people in his constituency in north Lanarkshire, Scotland.

Clarke, who secured the debate among MPs about the proposal, said he had visited a number of residential homes, and their residents were “terrified” about the cut.

He said there was “not a shred of evidence” that councils would be able to “pick up the bill” – as the government has claimed – if the money was removed.

Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn said he was concerned that the government could follow this “nasty and horrible” cut with “something much bigger”, by removing the mobility component from all disabled people.

The disabled Conservative MP Robert Halfon said many disabled people in his constituency were “genuinely anxious about the future”, but he claimed that councils would have a “legal obligation” to fill the gap left by the cut.

He added: “That funding will increasingly be distributed in the form of personal budgets, giving disabled people more choice and control over their services, including access to mobility equipment, taxis or scooters, if that suits them.”

But the Labour MP Kate Green said there was a “very real risk” that the cut could mean disabled people losing their Motability cars.

Margaret Curran, the Labour shadow work and pensions minister, said her party could not support the “crude, cruel cut”, which undermined the principle of personalised support.

She asked why, if mobility needs were already funded by councils – as the government claimed – there was “so little mention of it in existing community care plans”.

She said it was “a callous cut” for which the government would be “held to account for many years”.

Maria Miller, the minister for disabled people, claimed the cut was “designed not to reduce the mobility of disabled people, but to address the current complexities in the system”.

She said some people in residential care “receive DLA cash directly for their mobility needs, and at the same time they receive varying levels of mobility support at local level from care services, funded by their local authority”, while some care homes “provide excellent mobility support” and others offer “only basic provision”.

She said there were “mismatched systems for assessing the needs of disabled people: one for DLA, which assesses mobility and need in terms of cash; and another that provides, via local authorities, a more generic needs assessment reflected in services contracted with care homes”.

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com