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DWP minister Stephen Timms got ratioed for cosplaying someone who cares about disabled people

The public has deliciously ratioed Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) minister Stephen Timms on X. In a galling and wilfully obtuse piece of PR damage control, he crooned honeyed exaltations to the government’s so-called Pathways to Work ‘reforms’.

People weren’t having it – and rightly so. They were quick to set Starmer-stooge Stephen straight on a few things. Not least, what the stinking reforms he has much-lauded actually mean in practice, AKA: vicious cuts.

DWP cuts: Timms’ Pathways to Work PR stunt

Social security and disability charlatan and first-rate hypocrite Timms inanely garbled into the camera how:

There are 2.8 million people in the UK out of work on health and disability benefits. And hundreds of thousands of them would love to be in a job. But up till now, the barriers have been too high, the support hasn’t been there, to make those jobs accessible for them.

Predictably, it was the same old figures the government has been bandying about to back the case for its brutal welfare cuts. This would be the “hundreds of thousands” who would love a job the Canary has previously debunked as total bullshit. It’s based on a survey of a miniscule fraction of claimants. And the DWP and its ministers regularly conveniently forget to mention how they said they ‘want’ to work, but not that they physically can.

To background music with all the nauseatingly emotive overtones of a John Lewis Christmas ad, Timms in high-vis vest took a LARP at global supply chain company Yusen Logistics.

Why Yusen? Because the company is a so-called ‘Disability Confident’ employer. Of course, the minister was holding Yusen up like some shining example of a system actually working for disabled people. The reality of course is that this couldn’t be further from the truth.

Rather handily, on 14 August, the DWP published a list of employers who’ve signed up for the scheme. There’s just over 19,000 on the list.

And while that might sound like a lot, it’s not considering there’s 1.4 million employers with employees across the UK. In short, ‘Disability Confident’ companies make up just 1.3% of the UK’s employers.

‘Disability Confident’: a sham scheme that marks its own homework

To make matters worse, ‘Disability Confident’ employers aren’t all made equal either. Notably, the scheme has three levels, and the first – ‘Committed’ – only requires that employers:

identify at least one action that you’ll [the employer] carry out to make a difference for disabled people.

That can be as non-committal as sticking on some work experience or work trials, traineeships, or job shadowing. So it doesn’t mean the employer ACTUALLY employs disabled workers in full-waged roles. They make up more than 14,000 – nearly three quarters – of Disability Confident employers by the way:

Table showing: Committed - 14,202 Employer - 4268 Leader - 705 Grand total - 19175

Oh, and did we mention, that includes Yusen – level one ‘Committed’! You’d think the DWP might have tried to at least show off a ‘Leader’ on its pioneering scheme. Not that it gets better from there. Level two employers have to SELF-assess that they’re:

going the extra mile to make sure disabled people get a fair chance.

Even by the top level, employers only have to confirm they are employing disabled people. Obviously, it’s a disgracefully low bar. But it’s not surprising. It’s characteristic of a capitalist system that treats hiring disabled people as some magnanimous gesture, regarding disabled people who don’t fit its rigid, profit-making boxes as lesser value.

Granted, level three does require the self assessment is validated by someone outside the business. But wait for it… they choose this ‘validator’ for themselves. This can be other Disability Confident employers for example. Corporations all marking their own sector’s homework? That seems legit. So the scheme is all but a voluntary performative charade, with no proper regulation.

We also might question the integrity of any company willing to farm out their learning disabled employees to furnish the image of the DWP. That goes doubly so for a DWP that has just made disgusting cuts to disabled people’s benefits.

What jobs exactly, Timms?

The toxic Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) that’s committed “grave and systemic” violations of disabled people’s rights has validated its ‘Leader’ status. We’ll just leave this here:

Other ‘Leaders’ make a mockery of the scheme too, namely, the likes of ‘kill yourself’ scandal Work Capability Assessment (WCA) assessor Maximus for just one outrageous example. Don’t worry though, it employs disabled people, folks!

But all aboard the (likely) inaccessible train to Disability Confident work, just mind the disability employment gap:

That disability employment chasm – because gap is an understatement – has stayed stubbornly large (floating around 27.8%).

Many previous DWP work programmes have done precisely the opposite of leveling the playing field. Instead, they’ve actively harmed chronically ill and disabled people. You only have to look at the recent failures of the government’s ‘Restart’ scheme to get an idea of this. As I previously pointed out:

more than a decade of successive Conservative government’s callous welfare cuts and punitive conditionality regime work programmes have in no way helped disabled people into employment. Which means that Labour aren’t going to increase disability employment by using the same rebranded model.

To add insult to injury, there aren’t even any safe jobs for disabled people with even non-regulated Disability Confident status. Canary columnist Rachel Charlton-Dailey has been diligently tracking this.

The latest figures on the government’s own website show just seven fully remote, part-time, Disability Confident job roles. And notably, it appears most of those are care jobs wrongly listed as work from home, rather than working in the resident’s home:

Government 'Find a Job' website displaying 7 fully remote, part-time, Disability Confident roles in the whole UK.

Cuts to Access to Work show a serious government, so demure, so mindful

Labour seems to be labouring (‘scuse the pun) under the impression that employers will opt for disabled employees competing in a job market against non-disabled peers who won’t require the costs of reasonable adjustments. It’s like the party hasn’t heard of neoliberal capitalism. You know, that system that plunders, pillages, and treats workers like expendable pawns for profit. Except of course it basically breathes the shit:

It’s almost as if the new Labour government hasn’t spent the last year quietly cutting Access to Work:

The DWP: bridging the disability employment gap one exploitative slave labour job at a time

The ever-brilliant Dr Jay Watts made the point that this is the same DWP that punishes disabled people with grueling sanctions to shunt them into work, or otherwise, state-sanctioned destitution:

Just this week, Big Issue reported the disgusting department levying a ridiculous sanction against a 23-year-old claimant. Notably, it did so because she’d failed to apply for a role – even though she’d started a new job anyway.

Grok, find me the definition of gaslighting wanker:

Timms can’t sugarcoat that – cuts kill:

Disabled and chronically ill people are not a monolith, so the DWP’s one-size-fits-all ‘reforms’ will fail on their own terms:

What real support looks like for one group, or individual, is extremely different for another. What the poster on X was likely getting at is that Labour’s recent Universal Credit legislation is a disaster for people living with fluctuating chronic illnesses and conditions.

Moreover, they made another crucial point. That is, internship does not for long-term secure, safe, supportive employment make. Let’s call it what it is: more exploitative slave workfare.

Slimy Timms needs a new job, because soon he’ll be out of one

At this point, the government hasn’t got much trust left to lose in chronically ill and disabled communities. So, why not get in a bit of good ol’ disability-washing while it’s at it, eh?

Parading around learning disabled employees in a grossly tokenistic show of ‘inclusion’: check.

Utterly failing to take genuine action on systemic barriers, and superficially showing off ‘diversity hires’ while ignoring disabled communities trying to communicate their needs: also check.

That Timms thinks he can spout lofty platitudes to disabled equitability is not merely risible, but obscenely diabolical. This is the same Timms who has:

  • Spent years in opposition lambasting the Tories for cutting disabled people’s benefits – only to turn around and defend cutting disabled people’s benefits. Because doing so in the name of the party of the working people (about as bullshit as Starmer’s
  • Ignored a disabled person in a health crisis during a meeting about his vicious cuts.
  • Promised genuine co-production with disabled people on the PIP review. All ten of them he can count on to whitewash it for him.

So, here’s some free employment advice from the Canary on the house, Timm-sy ol’ boy:

Stephen Timms in high-vis vest. A white-grey wall behind him with a gold plaque reading 'Starmer & Sons' and text in white saying: Stephen's next job could be in tool-making (he just doesn't know it yet)

Because it sure as hell won’t be in parliament.

Featured image via screengrab

By Hannah Sharland

This post was originally published on Canary.