Yesterday Philip Hammond stated that “it is almost certainly the case that by increasing participation in the workforce, including far higher levels of participation by marginal groups and very high levels of engagement in the workforce, for example of disabled people – something we should be extremely proud of – may have had an impact on overall productivity measurements.”
You can read more about Hammond’s comments here.
We call on the Chancellor to immediately withdraw his damaging and unacceptable comments suggesting that disabled people are to blame for the UK’s low productivity.
Our Chief Executive Carien Meijer said: Philip Hammond managed to link the UK’s low productivity rates to the employment of more disabled people in the workforce. We refute this. Mr Hammond’s comments are utterly damaging, disrespectful and simply untrue. He needs to urgently apologise and withdraw his comments.
Disabled people lack visibility and are under-represented across the UK’s workforce. Last week, Drake Music released a paper highlighting these issues in the context of the music education workforce in England.
You can read about our paper here.
