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On 6th November 2018, the University of Bristol Law School hosted a meeting with Professor Philip Alston, UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, and eight organisations. This was his only meeting focussing specifically on extreme poverty in rural areas in the UK. A short (21 pages) final report on his mission to the UK has now been published.

Here is a summary of the report:

" The Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, undertook a mission to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from 5 to 16 November 2018.
Although the United Kingdom is the world's fifth largest economy, one fifth of its population (14 million people) live in poverty, and 1.5 million of them experienced destitution in 2017. Policies of austerity introduced in 2010 continue largely unabated, despite the tragic social consequences. Close to 40 per cent of children are predicted to be living in poverty by 2021. Food banks have proliferated; homelessness and rough sleeping have increased greatly; tens of thousands of poor families must live in accommodation far from their schools, jobs and community networks; life expectancy is falling for certain groups; and the legal aid system has been decimated. The social safety net has been badly damaged by drastic cuts to local authorities' budgets, which have eliminated many social services, reduced policing services, closed libraries in record numbers, shrunk community and youth centres and sold off public spaces and buildings. The bottom line is that much of the glue that has held British society together since the Second World War has been deliberately removed and replaced with a harsh and uncaring ethos. A booming economy, high employment and a budget surplus have not reversed austerity, a policy pursued more as an ideological than an economic agenda."
A few key paragraphs of the Overview are:

"II. Overview

3. The United Kingdom, the world's fifth largest economy, is a leading centre of global finance, boasts a "fundamentally strong" economy and currently enjoys record low levels of unemployment. But despite such prosperity, one fifth of its population (14 million people) live in poverty. Four million of those are more than 50 per cent below the poverty line3 and 1.5 million experienced destitution in 2017, unable to afford basic essentials. Following drastic changes in government economic policy beginning in 2010, the two preceding decades of progress in tackling child and pensioner poverty have begun to unravel and poverty is again on the rise. Relative child poverty rates are expected to increase by 7 per cent between 2015 and 2021 and overall child poverty rates to reach close to 40 per cent. For almost one in every two children to be poor in twenty-first century Britain would not just be a disgrace, but a social calamity and an economic disaster rolled into one.

4. But statistics alone cannot capture the full picture of poverty in the United Kingdom, much of it the direct result of government policies (unless otherwise indicated, "Government" in the present report refers to the United Kingdom Government). Official denials notwithstanding, it is obvious to anyone who opens their eyes. There has been a shocking increase in the number of food banks and major increases in homelessness and rough sleeping; a growing number of homeless families - 24,000 between April and June of 2018 - have been dispatched to live in accommodation far from their schools, jobs and community networks;7 life expectancy is falling for certain groups; and the legal aid system has been decimated, thus shutting out large numbers of low-income persons from the once-proud justice system. Government reforms have often denied benefits to people with severe disabilities and pushed them into unsuitable work, single mothers struggling to cope in very difficult circumstances have been left far worse off, care for those with mental illnesses has deteriorated dramatically, and teachers' real salaries have been slashed. The number of emergency admissions to hospitals of homeless people ("of no fixed abode") increased sevenfold between 2008-2009 and 2017-2018.9

5. In the past, the worst casualties of these "reforms" would have received at least minimal protection from the broader social safety net. But austerity policies have deliberately gutted local authorities and thereby effectively eliminated many social services, reduced policing services to skeletal proportions, closed libraries in record numbers, shrunk community and youth centres, and sold off public spaces and buildings including parks and recreation centres. It is hardly surprising that civil society has reported unheard-of levels of loneliness and isolation, prompting the Government to appoint a Minister for Suicide Prevention. The bottom line is that much of the glue that has held British society together since the Second World War has been deliberately removed and replaced with a harsh and uncaring ethos.

8. The Special Rapporteur also witnessed tremendous resilience, strength and generosity, and heard stories of deeply compassionate work coaches, local officials and volunteers; neighbours supporting one another; councils seeking creative solutions; and charities stepping in to fill holes in government services. People across the United Kingdom made it clear that they want to work, and are taking hard, low-paying and insecure jobs in order to put food on the table. They want to contribute to their society and communities, support their families, live in safe, affordable housing and take control over their lives.

9. In the face of these problems, the Government has remained determinedly in a state of denial. While local authorities throughout England and Wales are outsourcing or abandoning services, and devolved authorities in Scotland and Northern Ireland are frantically trying to "mitigate" or counteract the worst features of the Government's policies, ministers insist that all is well and running according to plan. Despite some reluctant policy tweaks, there has been a deeply ingrained resistance to change. The good news is that many of the problems could readily be solved if the Government were to listen to people experiencing poverty, the voluntary sector and local authorities, acknowledge their grievances and implement the recommendations below."

The report's conclusions and recommendations are:

95. The philosophy underpinning the British welfare system has changed radically since 2010. The initial rationales for reform were to reduce overall expenditures and to promote employment as the principal "cure" for poverty. But when large-scale poverty persisted despite a booming economy and very high levels of employment, the Government chose not to adjust course. Instead, it doubled down on a parallel agenda to reduce benefits by every means available, including constant reductions in benefit levels, ever-more-demanding conditions, harsher penalties, depersonalization, stigmatization, and virtually eliminating the option of using the legal system to vindicate rights. The basic message, delivered in the language of managerial efficiency and automation, is that almost any alternative will be more tolerable than seeking to obtain government benefits. This is a very far cry from any notion of a social contract, Beveridge model or otherwise, let alone of social human rights. As Thomas Hobbes observed long ago, such an approach condemns the least well off to lives that are "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short". As the British social contract slowly evaporates, Hobbes' prediction risks becoming the new reality.

96. The United Kingdom Government should:

(a) Introduce a single, multidimensional measure of poverty;
(b) Systematically measure food security;
(c) Request the National Audit Office to assess the cumulative social impact of tax and spending decisions since 2010, especially on vulnerable groups, with a view to identifying what would be required to restore an effective social safety net;
(d) Reverse particularly regressive measures such as the benefit freeze, the two-child limit, the benefit cap and the reduction of the Housing Benefit, including for under-occupied social rented housing;
(e) Restore local government funding needed to provide critical social protection and tackle poverty at the community level, and take varying needs of communities and differing tax bases into account in the ongoing Fair Funding Review;
(f) Initiate an independent review of the efficacy of changes to welfare conditionality and sanctions introduced since 2012 by the Department of Work and Pensions;
(g) Train Department staff to use more constructive and less punitive approaches to encouraging compliance;
(h) Eliminate the five-week delay in receiving initial UC benefits;
(i) Ensure that the benefit truly works for individuals, including by facilitating alternative payment arrangements and reviewing the monthly assessment practices;
(j) Review and remedy the systematic disadvantage inflicted by current policies on women, as well as on children, persons with disabilities, older persons and ethnic minorities;
(k) Re-evaluate privatization policies to ensure that the approach adopted achieves the best outcomes for the citizenry rather than for the corporate sector; transport, especially in rural areas, should be considered an essential service and the Government should ensure that all areas are adequately and affordably served.

97. Brexit presents an opportunity to reimagine what the United Kingdom stands for. Legislative recognition of social rights should be a central part of that reimagining. And social inclusion, rather than increasing marginalization of the working poor and those unable to work, should be the guiding principle of social policy.

Read full report here

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Last year the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights heard evidence from delegates at UoB Law School. His final report is now published.

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On 6th November 2018, the University of Bristol Law School hosted a meeting with Professor Philip Alston, UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, and eight organisations. This was his only meeting focussing specifically on extreme poverty in rural areas in the UK.

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Privatisation of education, UK and America

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Privatisation of education, UK and America

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Alston, an eminent New York-based human rights lawyer, said the government response amounted to “a total denial of a set of uncontested facts” and that when he first read its public comment “I thought it might actually be a spoof”.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/may/24/un-poverty-expert-hits-back-over-uk-ministers-denial-of-facts-philip-alston#:~:text=Philip%20Alston%2C%20the%20UN%20rapporteur,part%20of%20the%20British%20population%E2%80%9D.

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The United Nations expert whose warning of deepening poverty in Britain was this week dismissed as “barely believable” by ministers, has said the government’s denial is as worrying as the poverty itself.

Philip Alston, the UN rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, published his final report on the state of Britain on Wednesday. In it he accused the government of the “systematic immiseration of a significant part of the British population”. Ministers responded that it was “a completely inaccurate picture of our approach to tackling poverty” and instead claimed the UK was among the happiest countries in the world.

Alston, an eminent New York-based human rights lawyer, said the government response amounted to “a total denial of a set of uncontested facts” and that when he first read its public comment “I thought it might actually be a spoof”.

He said he feared it showed ministers were not willing to debate official figures that showed 14 million people were living in relative poverty and therefore consider what he believes are essential changes to the welfare system.

“The statement is as troubling as the situation,” he said. “There is nothing that indicates any willingness to debate over issues which have generated endless very detailed, totally reputable reports across the political spectrum in the UK. All of these are dismissed.”

Alston’s report compared Conservative policies to the creation of Victorian workhouses. Amber Rudd, the work and pensions secretary, said she felt it was politically biased and alleged that Alston did not do enough research, only visiting the UK for 11 days.

The government said it would complain to the United Nations and the UK’s ambassador in Geneva is understood to have this week requested a meeting with the UN high commissioner on human rights over the matter.

When Alston said the Department for Work and Pensions had created “a digital and sanitised version of the 19th-century workhouse”, some commentators said he had gone too far. The historian Dominic Sandbrook wrote in the Daily Mail that it was “simply ridiculous” and “an insult to our national intelligence”.

But far from backing down, Alston, who describes his politics as progressive and left-of-centre, has pushed his argument harder.

“I think breaking rocks has some similarity to the 35 hours of job search [required per week to receive universal credit] for people who have been out of work for months or years,” he said. “They have to go through the motions but it is completely useless. That seems to me to be very similar to the approach in the old-style workhouse. The underlying mentality is that we are going to make the place sufficiently unpleasant that you really won’t want to be here.”

In response to his report, the government cited research showing the UK was one of the happiest places in the world to live. It appeared to be a study that placed the UK 15th behind 12 other European countries including Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands and the whole of Scandinavia.

“That takes the denial on the part of the government to new heights,” Alston said. “The government is proceeding as if the problems I have reported don’t exist. Is it the case that 14 million people do not live in poverty? Do they contest the child poverty predictions? That is what it seems to be.”

Alston may have overstated one of the most startling statistics in his report, that “close to 40% of children are expected to be living in poverty by 2021”.

It was based on a forecast rise from 30% in 2016 to 37% in 2021 made 18 months ago by the Institute of Fiscal Studies, which now says it is likely to be an overestimate. The latest official figures, published in March, revealed the proportion of children in relative poverty has remained flat at 30% to 2018.

Alston said the figures were still bad: “We go down from 40% to one-third of British children. Is that a good result?”

Alston, a law professor at New York University, has been the UN poverty rapporteur since 2014 and has carried out investigations in countries including the US, Ghana, Saudi Arabia, China and Chile. He said governments normally responded with a detailed analysis or refutation of his reports but that had not yet come from the UK. Laos, which he investigated earlier this year, had already filed a detailed 20-page response.

In his reports he deliberately avoids “the arid and evasive language of diplomacy”, and that often leads him into political conflict.

He said it was a disgrace that the UN did not accept full responsibility for the cholera outbreak its workers imported to Haiti after the 2010 earthquake. In 2018, he accused the Trump administration of being driven by “contempt, and sometimes even by hatred for the poor” while “bringing in massive tax breaks for corporations and the very wealthy”. Trump’s ambassador to the UN at the time, Nikki Haley, accused him of bias and being “misleading and politically motivated”.

Alston, 69, a married father of four, studied law at Melbourne University and moved to Berkeley in California for his doctorate in the late 1970s. He has a long association with the UN, including as an official in Geneva for six years and chairing its committee on economic, social and cultural rights for eight years. As UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions for another six years, he travelled to countries including Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Afghanistan and Ecuador.

He is well-regarded by colleagues who in January sprung on him a surprise academic conference. He arrived for what he expected to be a routine event only to find a two-day seminar dedicated to his human rights work. Instead of party games and music, scholars, who had been planning the event in secret for two years, gave papers and panel discussions at what they dubbed “Philipfest”.

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UN poverty expert hits back over UK ministers’ ‘denial of facts’

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Exclusive: Philip Alston says he thought government response to his report might be a spoof

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As the UN report on poverty in the UK (2019) concludes... (sum up conclusion)

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It thus seems patently unjust and contrary to British values that so many people are living in poverty. This is obvious to anyone who opens their eyes to see the immense growth in foodbanks and the queues waiting outside them, the people sleeping rough in the streets, the growth of homelessness, the sense of deep despair that leads even the Government to appoint a Minister for suicide prevention and civil society to report in depth on unheard of levels of loneliness and isolation. And local authorities, especially in England, which perform vital roles in providing a real social safety net have been gutted by a series of government policies.

Statement on Visit to the United Kingdom, by Professor Philip Alston, United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights

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A leading United Nations poverty expert has compared Conservative welfare policies to the creation of 19th-century workhouses and warned that unless austerity is ended, the UK's poorest people face lives that are "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short".

In his final report on the impact of austerity on human rights in the UK, Philip Alston, the UN rapporteur on extreme poverty, accused ministers of being in a state of denial about the impact of policies, including the rollout of universal credit, since 2010. He accused them of the "systematic immiseration of a significant part of the British population" and warned that worse could be yet to come for the most vulnerable, who face "a major adverse impact" if Brexit proceeds. He said leaving the EU was "a tragic distraction from the social and economic policies shaping a Britain that it's hard to believe any political parties really want".

The New York-based lawyer's findings, published on Wednesday, follows a two-week fact-finding mission in November after which he angered ministers by calling child poverty in Britain "not just a disgrace but a social calamity and an economic disaster". Now he has accused them of refusing to debate the issues he raised and instead deploying "window dressing to minimise political fallout" by insisting the country is enjoying record lows in absolute poverty, children in workless households and low unemployment.

The "endlessly repeated" mantra about rising employment overlooks that "close to 40% of children are predicted to be living in poverty two years from now, 16% of people over 65 live in relative poverty and millions of those who are in work are dependent upon various forms of charity to cope", he said.

Amber Rudd, the work and pensions secretary, said in November she was "disappointed to say the least by the extraordinary political nature" of Alston's language after his tour of places including Newcastle, Glasgow, Belfast, Cardiff, Jaywick and London. Alston replied in his 21-page final report that there was an "almost complete disconnect" between what ministers and the public saw. The impact of austerity was obvious to anyone who opened their eyes, he said.

In his most barbed swipe at Rudd and her predecessors in charge of welfare, he said: "It might seem to some observers that the department of work and pensions has been tasked with designing a digital and sanitised version of the 19th-century workhouse, made infamous by Charles Dickens."

He said he had met people who had sold sex for money and joined gangs to avoid destitution.

The government hit back calling Alston's report "barely believable".

"The UN's own data shows the UK is one of the happiest places in the world to live, and other countries have come here to find out more about how we support people to improve their lives," a spokesperson for the Department for Work and Pensions said.

"Therefore this is a barely believable documentation of Britain, based on a tiny period of time spent here. It paints a completely inaccurate picture of our approach to tackling poverty."

Alston will present his report to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva next month and will argue that successive Conservative-led governments persisted with austerity and welfare cuts amid high levels of employment and a growing economy despite evidence that large-scale poverty was persisting. In doing so, "much of the glue that has held British society together since the second world war has been deliberately removed and replaced with a harsh and uncaring ethos ... British compassion has been replaced by a punitive, mean-spirited and often callous approach apparently designed to impose a rigid order on the lives of those least capable of coping."

The report slams the government's austerity programme, with criticisms of "shocking" rises in the use of food banks and rough sleeping, falling life expectancy for some, the "decimation" of legal aid, the denial of benefits to the severely disabled, falling teachers' salaries in real terms and the impoverishment of single mothers and people with mental illness.

Alston said austerity had "deliberately gutted" local authorities, shrinking library, youth, police and park services to the extent that it was not surprising there were "unheard-of levels of loneliness and isolation".

There was some praise for ministers for increases in work allowances under the universal credit welfare system and supporting the national minimum wage, but Alston said these measures had had not stopped the "dramatic decline in the fortunes of the least well-off".

He recommended ministers reverse local government funding cuts, scrap the benefits cap, eliminate the five-week delay in receiving initial universal credit benefits and rethink the privatisation of services including rural transport.

"Thomas Hobbes observed long ago, such an approach condemns the least well-off to lives that are 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short'," he said. "As the British social contract slowly evaporates, Hobbes' prediction risks becoming the new reality."
Topics

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UN report compares Tory welfare policies to creation of workhouses

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A leading United Nations poverty expert has compared Conservative welfare policies to the creation of 19th-century workhouses and warned that unless austerity is ended, the UK's poorest people face lives that are "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short".

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The United Nations expert whose warning of deepening poverty in Britain was this week dismissed as “barely believable” by ministers, has said the government’s denial is as worrying as the poverty itself.

Philip Alston, the UN rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, published his final report on the state of Britain on Wednesday. In it he accused the government of the “systematic immiseration of a significant part of the British population”. Ministers responded that it was “a completely inaccurate picture of our approach to tackling poverty” and instead claimed the UK was among the happiest countries in the world.

Alston, an eminent New York-based human rights lawyer, said the government response amounted to “a total denial of a set of uncontested facts” and that when he first read its public comment “I thought it might actually be a spoof”.

He said he feared it showed ministers were not willing to debate official figures that showed 14 million people were living in relative poverty and therefore consider what he believes are essential changes to the welfare system.

“The statement is as troubling as the situation,” he said. “There is nothing that indicates any willingness to debate over issues which have generated endless very detailed, totally reputable reports across the political spectrum in the UK. All of these are dismissed.”

Alston’s report compared Conservative policies to the creation of Victorian workhouses. Amber Rudd, the work and pensions secretary, said she felt it was politically biased and alleged that Alston did not do enough research, only visiting the UK for 11 days.

The government said it would complain to the United Nations and the UK’s ambassador in Geneva is understood to have this week requested a meeting with the UN high commissioner on human rights over the matter.

When Alston said the Department for Work and Pensions had created “a digital and sanitised version of the 19th-century workhouse”, some commentators said he had gone too far. The historian Dominic Sandbrook wrote in the Daily Mail that it was “simply ridiculous” and “an insult to our national intelligence”.

But far from backing down, Alston, who describes his politics as progressive and left-of-centre, has pushed his argument harder.

“I think breaking rocks has some similarity to the 35 hours of job search [required per week to receive universal credit] for people who have been out of work for months or years,” he said. “They have to go through the motions but it is completely useless. That seems to me to be very similar to the approach in the old-style workhouse. The underlying mentality is that we are going to make the place sufficiently unpleasant that you really won’t want to be here.”

In response to his report, the government cited research showing the UK was one of the happiest places in the world to live. It appeared to be a study that placed the UK 15th behind 12 other European countries including Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands and the whole of Scandinavia.

“That takes the denial on the part of the government to new heights,” Alston said. “The government is proceeding as if the problems I have reported don’t exist. Is it the case that 14 million people do not live in poverty? Do they contest the child poverty predictions? That is what it seems to be.”

Alston may have overstated one of the most startling statistics in his report, that “close to 40% of children are expected to be living in poverty by 2021”.

It was based on a forecast rise from 30% in 2016 to 37% in 2021 made 18 months ago by the Institute of Fiscal Studies, which now says it is likely to be an overestimate. The latest official figures, published in March, revealed the proportion of children in relative poverty has remained flat at 30% to 2018.

Alston said the figures were still bad: “We go down from 40% to one-third of British children. Is that a good result?”

Alston, a law professor at New York University, has been the UN poverty rapporteur since 2014 and has carried out investigations in countries including the US, Ghana, Saudi Arabia, China and Chile. He said governments normally responded with a detailed analysis or refutation of his reports but that had not yet come from the UK. Laos, which he investigated earlier this year, had already filed a detailed 20-page response.

In his reports he deliberately avoids “the arid and evasive language of diplomacy”, and that often leads him into political conflict.

He said it was a disgrace that the UN did not accept full responsibility for the cholera outbreak its workers imported to Haiti after the 2010 earthquake. In 2018, he accused the Trump administration of being driven by “contempt, and sometimes even by hatred for the poor” while “bringing in massive tax breaks for corporations and the very wealthy”. Trump’s ambassador to the UN at the time, Nikki Haley, accused him of bias and being “misleading and politically motivated”.

Alston, 69, a married father of four, studied law at Melbourne University and moved to Berkeley in California for his doctorate in the late 1970s. He has a long association with the UN, including as an official in Geneva for six years and chairing its committee on economic, social and cultural rights for eight years. As UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions for another six years, he travelled to countries including Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Afghanistan and Ecuador.

He is well-regarded by colleagues who in January sprung on him a surprise academic conference. He arrived for what he expected to be a routine event only to find a two-day seminar dedicated to his human rights work. Instead of party games and music, scholars, who had been planning the event in secret for two years, gave papers and panel discussions at what they dubbed “Philipfest”.

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UN poverty expert hits back over UK ministers’ ‘denial of facts’

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Exclusive: Philip Alston says he thought government response to his report might be a spoof

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Everyone in the UK should have the peace of mind and confidence that come from world-class health care – and so this new One Nation Conservative Government is giving the NHS its biggest ever cash boost, with 20 hospital upgrades and 40 new hospitals, while delivering 50,000 more nurses and 6,000 more doctors and creating an extra 50 million general practice appointments a year.

https://assets-global.website-files.com/5da42e2cae7ebd3f8bde353c/5dda924905da587992a064ba_Conservative%202019%20Manifesto.pdf

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We find that the Labour Party manifesto provides an array of

policy  tools  to  transform  our  economy  towards  investment

and innovation in a green and socially just direction, ensuring

that  everyone  has  the  right  to  a  good  life. The  key  policies

include  the  Green  Industrial  Revolution,  an  end  to  austerity,

and a new National Education Service.

The Conservative Party manifesto, by comparison, has a focus

on Brexit and a handful of public services (police, NHS) where

headline promises are made about boosting the numbers of

officers and nurses. Meanwhile, many other services lose out.

www.classonline.org.uk

Briefing

Labour vs Conservative

Manifestos

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"Taxes are rising to their highest level as a percentage of GDP since the 1950s - I don't like it, but I cannot apologise for it - it's the result of the unprecedented crisis," he said in his Budget speech.

"But now, we have a choice," he said, adding "do we want to live in a country where the response to every question is: "what is the government going to do about it?"

"Or do we choose to recognise that government has limits, that government should have limits." - Rishi Sunak

She said the government was introducing big taxes but said "those taxes are not falling on the banks - bankers got a tax cut" in reference to a 5% cut in the surcharge levied on banks' profits. - Rachel Reeves

The government has faced strong criticism over its decision to reduce the universal credit benefit by £20-a-week.

Mr Sunak did not offer to maintain the £20 uplift - introduced during the pandemic - but instead announced that the "taper" would be cut so that instead of losing 63p of benefit for every £1 earned above the work allowance, the amount will be reduced to 55p.

Ms Reeves said that would not make up for the wider cuts to universal credit which affected five million families.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-59071683

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Wednesday's Budget - which saw tax and spending rise to record levels - represents a major shift in Tory philosophy, a minister has claimed.

The party has traditionally tried to cut taxes and keep spending down.

Treasury Secretary Simon Clarke said it was still committed to low taxes but made "no apologies" for increasing public spending.

Rishi Sunak told MPs the higher tax burden is down to the "unprecedented crisis" of the pandemic.

But the chancellor also turned on the spending taps in his Budget, after being widely expected to make cuts to in many government departments to help pay down the deficit.

He committed to spending increases of £150bn over three years, including nearly £2bn to help schools in England catch up following coronavirus, £6bn to tackle NHS backlogs and £7bn for transport projects.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank said the spending plans were "more similar" to those of the Labour governments in the 2000s than those of George Osborne - a former Conservative chancellor.

Mr Clarke told BBC Newsnight: "The chancellor was very open about the fact that this is something of a philosophical shift.

"What we want to see is to get the economy turbocharged, unlock productivity, and to deliver growth more evenly across UK. That does require some upfront spending."

Mr Sunak has sought to calm the fears of some Conservative MPs that the party has abandoned its core economic principles.

"Taxes are rising to their highest level as a percentage of GDP since the 1950s - I don't like it, but I cannot apologise for it - it's the result of the unprecedented crisis," he said in his Budget speech.

"But now, we have a choice," he said, adding "do we want to live in a country where the response to every question is: "what is the government going to do about it?"

"Or do we choose to recognise that government has limits, that government should have limits."

He later insisted to ITV's Robert Peston that this was not "empty rhetoric", adding that both he and the prime minister wanted to deliver lower taxes by the end of the Parliament.

He also told a meeting of backbench Conservative MPs on Wednesday night that "in the future every marginal pound should be put into lowering taxes".

Labour's shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves told ITV News that it was important to raise money "but not in the way the government is doing it".

She said the government was introducing big taxes but said "those taxes are not falling on the banks - bankers got a tax cut" in reference to a 5% cut in the surcharge levied on banks' profits.

She added that Labour would raise taxes on "online giants who aren't paying their fair share".

Just before the chancellor got to his feet, one former minister on the right of the party said he hoped this would be a pivot moment: back to the kind of government action, where Conservatives were seeking to shrink the state, seeking to reduce taxes, seeking to pull back from some of the very big government moves they made because of the pandemic.

Rishi Sunak had a little bit of extra cash to play with, but instead of using that wriggle room he had, to signal the government was going to become smaller, in fact he staked his post out in a landscape where big government is here to stay, and eye-watering levels of tax are here to stay for the foreseeable future (although he seemed to dangle a promise of tax cuts before the next election).

That has created Conservative tensions but clearly it's the political calculation of him and Boris Johnson that it's the right thing to do.

Mr Sunak also used his Budget to repeat pre-announced measures, including an end to the public sector pay freeze and an increase to the National Living Wage from £8.91 per hour to £9.50.

According to Office for Budget Responsibility figures, household disposable income is set to rise by 0.8% per year.

Economic growth is forecast to rise to 6.3% next year - higher than previously predicted - but it will then slow to 1.3% by 2023.

New Budget measures included:

A real-terms rise in spending for every government department

A freeze on fuel duty

Funding per pupil in England's schools is to be restored to 2010 levels over the next three years

A 5% cut to the extra corporation tax banks have to pay to "maintain competitiveness"

An extra £2.2bn for courts, prisons and probation services, including £500m to reduce courts backlogs

A cut in air passenger duty for internal UK flights - and a tax rise on "ultra long haul" flights

More support for industrial research and development

And the chancellor scrapped next year's planned increase in business rates in England and promised more frequent revaluations, and tax breaks for firms that make improvements to their properties, from 2023.

The government has faced strong criticism over its decision to reduce the universal credit benefit by £20-a-week.

Mr Sunak did not offer to maintain the £20 uplift - introduced during the pandemic - but instead announced that the "taper" would be cut so that instead of losing 63p of benefit for every £1 earned above the work allowance, the amount will be reduced to 55p.

Ms Reeves said that would not make up for the wider cuts to universal credit which affected five million families.

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Budget 2021: There has been a shift in Tory philosophy - minister

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Wednesday's Budget - which saw tax and spending rise to record levels - represents a major shift in Tory philosophy, a minister has claimed. The party has traditionally tried to cut taxes and keep spending down. Treasury Secretary Simon Clarke said it was still committed to low taxes but made "no apologies" for increasing public spending.

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When the Labour MP Alex Cunningham put it to Anderson that food banks should not be needed in 21st century Britain, Anderson agreed. He went on:

This is exactly my point. I’ll invite you personally to come to Ashfield, look at our food bank, how it works. And I’ll think you’ll see first hand that there’s not this massive use for food banks in this country. We’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget. The challenge is there.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/may/11/boris-johnson-michael-gove-tories-cost-of-living-latest-updates

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Tory MP Lee Anderson says no massive need for food banks in UK, and real problem people not being able to cook properly
In his contribution to the Queen's speech debate the Conservative MP Lee Anderson said that a food bank in his Ashfield constituency operated a "brilliant scheme" whereby people accepting a donation had to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course. He went on:

We show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget. We can make a meal for about 30p a day, and this is cooking from scratch.

When the Labour MP Alex Cunningham put it to Anderson that food banks should not be needed in 21st century Britain, Anderson agreed. He went on:

This is exactly my point. I'll invite you personally to come to Ashfield, look at our food bank, how it works. And I'll think you'll see first hand that there's not this massive use for food banks in this country. We've got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can't cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget. The challenge is there.

From the context, it is clear that when he said there was not a "massive use for food banks", he meant no massive need for them.

That's all for our live coverage for today, but here's a summary of all the day's developments in case you missed them.

Conservative MP Lee Anderson was criticised after claiming the UK has no "massive use for food banks" and that people use them because they "cannot cook properly [or] budget"

Responding to the comments, Labour said: "Out of touch doesn't even cover it"

A number of Tory MPs called on the prime minister to introduce tax cuts to help address the cost of living

Boris Johnson visited Finland and Sweden to sign mutual security agreements with both countries

At a press conference in Helsinki, he said the invasion of Ukraine would not be the end of Vladimir Putin's "neo-imperialist ambitions" if he was not resisted

DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Robinson indicated his party may refuse to nominate a speaker for the Northern Ireland assembly until the government scraps the Northern Ireland protocol

The party had already said it would refuse to nominate a deputy first minister to the power-sharing executive at Stormont

Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove indicated the government was no longer committed to a manifesto target to build 300,000 homes a year

He also drew derision after affecting a series of strange voices to parody opponents during an interview with the BBC

Only 28% of Britons think Brexit is now "done", new data from YouGov shows.

A poll conducted by the firm showed that only 20% of people who supported the Remain campaign agreed that Brexit was done, while 62% said it wasn't. Among Leave voters, the equivalent figures were 40% and 46%.

It comes amid renewed tensions with the EU over threats by the UK government to unilaterally scrap the Northern Ireland protocol.

The prime minister is showing his backbenchers "more than a bit of ankle" on the prospect of introducing tax cuts soon, Conservative MP Jake Berry has said.

Berry represents Rossendale and Darwen in Lancashire and also chairs the Northern Research Group, a group made up of MPs elected to northerly constituencies in 2019 and formed to pressure the government for greater investment in the north and the so-called "red wall".

Speaking to Sky News, Berry said constituents were "feeling the pain" of the cost of living crisis, and that the Conservative party would have to "look after our people" if it wants to hold seats won in 2019.

"That is why we are working with the PM and other government ministers to find ways we can help alleviate some of these cost pressures," he said.

Asked if that meant the government was considering introducing tax cuts soon, Berry said: "I think the prime minister is listening to colleagues, and he's certainly beginning to show more than a little bit of ankle in this area."

But he also added: "We want him to do more, we want him to act now. It's kind of now or never for the prime minister on the cost of living question."

More reaction now to those comments on food banks from Tory MP Lee Anderson, this time from Frances O'Grady, general secretary of the Trade Union Congress.

"Many people who use food banks are in work. These remarks are insulting and show how out of touch Conservative MPs and ministers are with the cost of living emergency," O'Grady said.

"While the government sits on its hands, families across Britain are being pushed to the brink by soaring bills and prices.

"Rather than being condescending, Conservative politicians should be putting pressure on the chancellor to call an emergency budget."

Lee Anderson said cooking lessons and not food banks are what Britons need. Photograph: Parliament TV

Footage shows London mayor Sadiq Khan throwing the opening pitch at a baseball game at the San Fransisco Giants' stadium.

It comes during a four-day trip to the US by the mayor to promote the UK capital to international investors and help support its recovery from the pandemic.

Inviting a guest of honour to throw the first pitch at a baseball game is a longstanding tradition in the US, with the country's presidents going back to the late 19th century often taking part.

Khan threw the first pitch at a game between the hometown Giants and the Colorado Rockies at the Oracle Park stadium.

It follows the announcement that Major League Baseball will play regular-season games in London in 2023, 2024 and 2026 as part of a long-term strategic partnership.

Tory MP and chair of the Treasury select committee Mel Stride has said he expects the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, to announce measures to help tackle the cost of living crisis "in a matter of weeks".

Speaking to Times Radio, Stride said: "There is an absolute urgency to this. And there will be lots of thinking going on in the Treasury.

"And I suspect, the chancellor - whether we call it an emergency budget, or just a statement of the House, or whatever it's dressed up as - I think the chancellor will be, I suspect, having more to say in a matter of weeks, or a month or so, rather than waiting right until the autumn of this year."

Speaking last month, Sunak said it would be "silly" to announce more measures to help with energy bills before it was known how much prices would rise in the coming months, though pledged to look again at more support in the autumn.

Stride continued: "My bet, for what it's worth, is that I think the pressure will be such that he will be appearing before the House well before the autumn, laying out various things. He might wait for some of the stuff around energy to see where that energy cap is going to be raised in the autumn. So he might leave that a little bit later.

"But I think in the meantime, I suspect there will be various things wheeled out not just by the chancellor, but other ministers as well, all of them focused on this burning issue of the cost of living challenge."

Karen Buck MP, Labour's shadow work and pensions minister, has responded to a claim by Conservative MP Lee Anderson that people use food banks because they "cannot cook properly [or] budget" (see the pinned post at the top of the blog for the clip).

Buck said: "In the world where people actually live we now hear daily stories of families going without food and others unable to turn their ovens on in fear of rising energy bills.

"The idea that the problem is cooking skills and not 12 years of government decisions that are pushing people into extreme poverty is beyond belief.

"Out of touch doesn't even cover it."

Haroon Siddique

The UK's three human rights commissions have expressed concern about plans to scrap the Human Rights Act (HRA) and replace it with a British bill of rights, as announced in Tuesday's Queen's speech.

In evidence before parliament's joint committee on human rights, senior figures from all three commissions (for England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland respectively) highlighted the achievements of the HRA and said there was no case for it to be replaced.

Alyson Kilpatrick, chief executive at the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, said: "We would certainly want to see the Human Rights Act strengthened, not diminished.

"We don't recognise the basis upon which these proposals have been put forward, certainly not in Northern Ireland, and we think it has paid scant regard, in fact, to the impact that has been seen in Northern Ireland of stronger human rights and protection. So we would be very concerned to see any weakening of the Human Rights Act by replacement or amended bill of rights."

She said the HRA was central to the peace process and that the police in Northern Ireland had been "transformed beyond recognition" as a result of having to comply with the European Convention of Human Rights, which was given effect in UK law by the HRA.

Barbara Bolton, head of legal and policy at the Scottish Human Rights Commission, said: "The Scottish Human Rights Commission is extremely concerned about the proposals and the severe negative impact that those proposals would have on access to justice and access to a remedy for individuals across society and the potential that this would leave the UK in breach in particular, of Article 13 (right to remedy) of the European Convention (of Human Rights)."

She also said repealing the HRA had "potential for unsettling devolution" because it is embedded in the Scotland Act, which provides for the establishment of a Scottish Parliament and administration.

Baroness Falkner, chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (which covers England and Wales), said the HRA "has played and continues to play a vital role in strengthening the protection of human rights in the United Kingdom".

She recognised that the government has specific concerns "but that doesn't to us build a convincing case for an overall deep and substantive review of the act of this point".

Boris Johnson has also commented on the cost of living crisis at the press conference in Helsinki. It was put to him by LBC's Nick Ferrari that he was "very good at supporting Ukraine, but ... lamentably poor at supporting your own people".

He responded: "What we've got to do right now is help people through the aftershocks of the Covid pandemic just as we helped people through Covid, and we will. Everybody knows how tough it can be right now, but we're going to get through it.

"You know all the money we're already spending. There will be more. Of course there will be more support in the months ahead as things continue to be tough with the increase in the energy prices."

He then added: "But I just want to explain to people why it is so important that we stand strong against aggression in Ukraine at the same time.

"Because there is no doubt at all, looking at what Vladimir Putin has done, that if he were not to be resisted ... this would not be the end of his neo-imperialist, revanchist ambitions.

"And just imagine the consequences, not just military or political, but economic, of further Russian aggression against any of the other former parts of the Soviet Union. And it's to prevent that further catastrophe that it's so important that we are together strong now."

A press conference held jointly by the prime minister, Boris Johnson, and the Finnish president, Sauli Niinistö, is getting under way in Helsinki. The prime minister has visited both Sweden and Finland today to sign mutual security declarations with both countries.

Asked by a journalist from Svenska Yle whether the declaration would mean British boots on the ground on Finnish territory in the event of a conflict with Russia, he says: "Let me be clear, because I think the solemn declaration is itself clear.

"And what it says is that in the event of a disaster or in the event of an attack on either of us, then yes we will come to each other's assistance, including with military assistance. But the nature of that assistance will of course depend upon the request of the other party.

"But it's also intended to be the foundation of an intensification of our security and our defence relationship in other ways as well."

This segment was amended on 13 May 2022 because an earlier version incorrectly referred to Svenska Yle as Sweden's public broadcaster.

Tory MP Lee Anderson accused of 'insulting' parents who rely on food banks

Andrew Sparrow

The Child Poverty Action Group has accused the Tory MP Lee Anderson of "insulting" people who rely on food banks in the Commons earlier. (See 3.21pm.) Alison Garnham, its chief executive, said:

Four million children are living in poverty in the UK, and it's not because their parents can't cook.

There are few households better at budgeting than those on a low income, they have to do it every single day.

Rather than insulting parents who have no option but to use foodbanks in the face of soaring costs and real terms income cuts, politicians would do better to back real-world solutions, like bringing benefits in line with inflation this autumn.

That is all from me for today. My colleague Christy Cooney is now taking over.

The UK will probably have to go through a "mild recession" if not worse before inflation comes back to a more manageable level, top economists have warned MPs. PA Media reports:

London School of Economics professor Charles Goodhart said that wages and prices were feeding off each other to push up inflation, and this could not be weakened without the labour market weakening.

"The likelihood is that we're going to have to have at the very least a mild recession and unemployment rising," he told MPs on the Treasury select committee.

His comments were echoed by Adam Posen, the president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

"The sad reality is there is going to have to be an economic slowdown in the UK beyond what is already on the cards in order to get inflation sustainably back to target," he said.

Posen said that the UK was facing problems that are more like those seen in the US, despite pursuing a more European approach to stimulating the economy during Brexit.

"To me this tells you that this is something idiosyncratic to the UK about how the same inflation shock of Covid reopening, of energy prices, of Ukraine, is being transmitted to the UK," he said.

"I think a large part of this is Brexit, because what has happened is you don't have the flexible labour supply of migrants coming from Europe, who can both add to the labour supply, but also go in and out of work as needed."

Last week the Bank of England raised interest rates to 1%, the highest for 13 years, in a bid to combat soaring inflation.

It predicts that inflation could rise to above 10% later this year.

Boris Johnson has also restated the government's intention to do more to help people with the cost of living, the Sun's Kate Ferguson reports.

More cost of living support on the way?

Boris Johnson: "I am not ruling out that we will do more to help - of course we will do more to help."
- Kate Ferguson (@kateferguson4) May 11, 2022

For some time now the government has been saying further help for people with the cost of living will come later this year. What is uncertain is when this might arrive (originally the plan was to wait until late summer for the next massive intervention, but the government is under pressure to bring that forward), and what form it will take (tax cuts, grants or welfare payments?).

In an interview with ITV, Boris Johnson was asked again whether he would resgin over Partygate, in the light of Keir Starmer's announcement that he will resign if he is fined. Johnson ignored the question completely and just spoke about Ukraine, and the new security assurances.

'I'm going to get on with making sure that we try to fortify the defences of Europe against the clear potential of Russia to launch unprovoked aggression'@BorisJohnson, asked if he will resign over the partygate scandal, suggests he is more focused on the threat from Putin pic.twitter.com/rMrM1pyPMG
- ITV News Politics (@ITVNewsPolitics) May 11, 2022

Stephen Crabb, the former work and pensions secretary, has posted this on Twitter explaining why he thinks the government needs to do more to address the cost of living crisis.

Conservatives tend to emphasise work, good budgeting/housekeeping, strong families etc as defences against hardship. Problem right now for many people is that ticking all those boxes still doesn't keep their heads above water. Government has done a lot but more is required
- Stephen Crabb (@SCrabbPembs) May 11, 2022

Crabb is on the one nation, left of the Conservative party. David Davis is on the Thatcherite right. If both of them (see 2.41pm), are demanding some sort of significant, cost of living bailout, then there are probably few MPs in the party who aren't.

Lisa Nandy, the shadow levelling up secretary, says the Tories can no longer claim to be the party of home ownership. In a statement commenting on Michael Gove's admission this morning that the Conservatives are no longer committed to the manifesto target of building 300,000 homes a year by the mid-2020s (see 9.35am), she said:

Under the Conservatives housing has become less affordable, spending on rent has skyrocketed, and home ownership has gone down. All this puts more pressure on families facing a cost of living crisis.

The Conservatives can no longer claim to be the party of home ownership. We need a government that will take action now to help people who are struggling with rising bills and prices, and that will invest to give them the long-term security of owning their own home.

According to Labour, average house prices in England rose by 56% between 2010 and 2021, while average wages went up by just 20%. The party also says that in England there were 211,000 fewer working-age homeowners in 2020-21 than in 2009-10.

Lisa Nandy. Photograph: Tayfun Salcı/Zuma Press Wire/Rex/Shutterstock

A reader BTL (below the line) has been in touch to say that taking visiting dignitaries out in the rowing boat is a tradition for Swedish prime ministers when they have visitors at their country retreat.

Boris Johnson has entered the caption competition. (See 2.27pm.)

Today we made history by signing a joint declaration of solidarity to strengthen our security and defence ties and bring our nations even closer together.

We are literally and metaphorically in the same boat.

🇬🇧🇸🇪 https://t.co/4jML46tGNS
- Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) May 11, 2022

In the course of a Twitter exchange with Adam Wagner, the barrister and Covid regulations specialist, Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson's former chief adviser, says Johnson was personally involved in the government's decision in 2020 to exempt grouse shooting from Covid rules.

by June he was full - i shd never have listened to you. i shd have been the mayor of jaws. i shd have ignored the whole thing. it's swine flu... and we gotta exempt grouse shooting or the mps will go crackers
[officials/lawyers clutch heads]
- Dominic Cummings (@Dominic2306) May 11, 2022

i was driving on a sunday, switch, pm wants conference call, u & covid taskforce...
argh getting loads of incoming on grouse shooting, argh chief says it's bad we're gonna have to fold on this one yeah i know it sounds crazy...
me (punching steering wheel) no no no no NOOOOOOO
- Dominic Cummings (@Dominic2306) May 11, 2022

By "chief", Cummings is referring to the chief whip - at the time Mark Spencer.

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Tory MP says no massive need for food banks in UK and real problem is people's cooking skills - as it happened

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Tory MP Lee Anderson says no massive need for food banks in UK, and real problem people not being able to cook properly In his contribution to the Queen's speech debate the Conservative MP Lee Anderson said that a food bank in his Ashfield constituency operated a "brilliant scheme" whereby people accepting a donation had to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course.

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"its standardized testing that sets up schools for privatization"

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"its standardized testing that sets up schools for privatization"

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Charter Schools May Be the Future of Public Education

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Charter Schools May Be the Future of Public Education

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The General Election on the 8 th June is one of the most important elections in our time.

Like the BDA's Manifesto, many Political parties have made sure their Manifestos are accessible in BSL.

However, the Conservative party, to date, have declined, even after repeated requests to have a BSL interpretation of their Manifesto, thus denying Deaf people who use sign language the right to be informed and to have full access to information on what the Tory policies are on a wide range of issues they are presenting to the COUNTRY

This is a clear breach of the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (CRPD)
ARTICLE 29 Participation in political and public life (i) Ensuring that voting procedures, facilities and materials are appropriate, accessible and easy to understand and use; (b) To promote actively an environment in which persons with disabilities can effectively and fully participate in the conduct of public affairs, without discrimination and on an equal basis with others, and encourage their participation in public affairs.
BDA strongly feels Democracy is the cornerstone of our society and we all have the right to vote for whom we please.
Information is a Right Knowledge is a Right Democracy is a Right We want to have the RIGHT to have informed information in our chosen language, BSL, in order to make an informed decision on 8th June We demand Equality Enough is Enough.

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Conservatives refuse BSL translation of Manifesto - British Deaf Association

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The General Election on the 8 th June is one of the most important elections in our time. Like the BDA's Manifesto, many Political parties have made sure their Manifestos are accessible in BSL.

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The Conservatives have identified mental health as a "burning injustice" in their manifesto, promised to "break the stigma" around mental illness and said they will ensure patients are treated fairly.

However, the party has not pledged any extra funding for mental health services, which doctors and campaigners say are struggling due to local authority cuts and increasing demand.

Theresa May was accused of "tokenism" after announcing new policies designed to fight discrimination against mental health conditions without tackling their causes or providing sufficient investment to treat them.

In the manifesto, the Conservatives promise to "address the need for better treatments across the whole spectrum of mental health conditions."

"We will make the UK the leading research and technology economy in the world for mental health, bringing together public, private and charitable investment," it says.

The manifesto also repeats the Government's plan to give "parity of esteem" to mental health conditions in the NHS and transform how mental health is regarded in the workplace.

But Marjorie Wallace, chief executive of mental health charity SANE, said the Prime Minister's vision for mental health was "painting over some dangerous cracks and fault lines" in psychiatric services.

"At SANE, we hear daily of heartbreaking struggles from individuals and families who are being failed. For this promised revolution to succeed, there needs to be a guarantee that resources are placed in frontline services," she told The Independent.

The Conservatives say mental health funding has been increased since 2010 and is now at a "record" level of £11.4bn this year.

However, it was revealed last month that spending on mental health services is being cut in five regions of England, despite promises the NHS will invest an extra £1 billion a year in them by 2021.

Charities have also warned that local authorities are spending less than one per cent of their public health budget on preventing mental health problems on average.

Natasha Devon, the Government's former children's mental health tsar, told The Independent the manifesto contained "a lot of rhetoric and sloganeering" on the issue of mental health, but fell short of outlining necessary changes.

Ms Devon was made the Department for Education (DfE)'s children's mental health tsar in 2015 but was sacked after speaking out against Government policies.

"Working at Government level for those nine months, I felt there was a perception mental health was a vote-winner because it affects so many people, but there was no willingness to take any kind of dramatic action to invest the necessary funding," she said.

"What we have, and this manifesto is no different, is a lot of rhetoric and sloganeering - 'parity of esteem' keeps being used over and over again - but nothing that's going to dramatically change the landscape of mental health in the way that really needs to happen.

"To me, it felt like more empty promises," she added. "It's tokenistic. The whole speech was fluffy and what [Theresa May] said about mental health was no different."

The DfE denied at the time that Ms Devon had been politically motivated to silence criticism, instead saying her role was being dropped to avoid "confusion" as a new cross-government mental health champion was being appointed.

Ms Devon warned that this funding was often not ring-fenced and often "isn't reaching people on the ground".

"It's being allocated to the local authority, and local authorities are incredibly squeezed, so in 49 per cent of cases they're spending it on other things," she said.

"I know mental health charities and projects that have been promised pots of funding, and it's never actually reached them."

Mental health problems are the largest cause of burden of disease in the UK and are responsible for up to 28 per cent of the total burden of health problems, according to the Mental Health Foundation.

They are said to cost the UK an estimated £70bn to £100bn a year.

The Foundation said it welcomed the increased prominence of mental health in all the major parties' election campaigns, but called for "a longer term and more substantial commitment to funding and need more detailed information on how the cross government prioritisation of mental health and community support will be funded."

The manifesto said a new Mental Health Bill would make sure mental health problems were treated with the same urgency as physical health conditions, and promised to reform laws to protect workers against discrimination for mental health conditions.

Unison also called for funding to match this promise. "For too long mental health has been denied equal priority with physical health. A person with depression deserves the same treatment as a patient with a broken leg," said Sara Gorton, the union's deputy head of health.

"But this is never going to happen unless there's proper funding," she said.

"Money for mental health should go to the services needing it most. The real 'injustice' is the Conservatives are making broad promises with no real commitment."

The manifesto also promises a real-terms funding increase of £8bn for the NHS, but questions were raised over whether this will apply to non-ringfenced budgets such as those which covers investment in building projects, public health and training for doctors and nurses.

The British Medical Association (BMA) accused the Conservatives of using "smoke and mirrors" to give the impression of a funding boost.

"Rather than extra money, this essentially extends the funding already promised in the 2015 spending review for another two years and falls far short of what is needed," said council chair Dr Mark Porter.

"The NHS is already at breaking point, and without the necessary investment patients will face longer delays, care will be compromised and services will struggle to keep up.

Targets such as the 95 per cent of A&E patients being seen in four hours, and no waits of longer than 18 weeks for non-urgent surgery, will be retained if the Conversatives win the next election, according to the manifesto.

A new GP contract is also being proposed, with family doctors expected to "come together to provide greater access, more innovative services, share data and offer better facilities, which ensuring care remains personal".

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Tories promise to rectify 'injustice' of mental health - but pledge no extra funding for services

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The Conservatives have identified mental health as a "burning injustice" in their manifesto, promised to "break the stigma" around mental illness and said they will ensure patients are treated fairly. However, the party has not pledged any extra funding for mental health services, which doctors and campaigners say are struggling due to local authority cuts and increasing demand.

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Stephen and Elaine are disabled and rely solely on Stephen's income. But with the impending removal of his subsidised Motability car, he will have no way of getting to work. Their life has been drastically affected by a series of Tory cuts, reforms and changes to disability benefits and a growing crisis in social care and housing. This is the story of people living and working with disabilities in modern Britain

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Living with disabilities under austerity: 'How the hell are we going to manage?'

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Stephen and Elaine are disabled and rely solely on Stephen's income. But with the impending removal of his subsidised Motability car, he will have no way of getting to work. This is the story of people living and working with disabilities in modern Britain

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One way for more people to find a route out of poverty is through a better system of social security, working as part of a larger system including a stronger contribution from the housing and employment sectors, spurred on by the public and political will to act.

We are in the early days of developing a better social security system through devolved powers in Scotland. About one pound in every six spent on social security is now devolved to Holyrood. The new system isn't likely to put much more money in pockets in the short-term. But there is a firm set of principles in legislation, to be applied by Social Security Scotland, that includes putting dignity, fairness and respect at the heart of the service, and placing a duty on Ministers to boost take-up. Experience Panels, composed of legacy UK system-users, have shaped early payments such as the Best Start Grants, and are informing a different approach to disability assessment (perhaps the single biggest test that lies ahead). They have also co-designed a new Charter which sets out rights and responsibilities for the public and the workforce. It is a chance to fix key features of the UK system that have failed too many people.

The Scottish Child Payment is the early game-changer. Brought forward to start for children aged under six in eligible families by Christmas 2020, it has the potential to reduce child poverty by 30,000 (three percentage points). JRF has welcomed this as a golden opportunity to turn the tide for families in poverty. The trouble is that, despite this, child poverty is on the up, driven mostly by UK social security reforms (notably the long-running benefits freeze, and increasingly the two-child limit), and is projected to return to levels last seen almost 20 years ago by the middle of the next decade.

This insight sparked the idea for JRF's recent event in Edinburgh during Challenge Poverty Week. We brought together stakeholders to explore game-changing policies and approaches needed across the anchor-points of housing, work and social security, if Scotland's ambitious targets on child poverty, which all political parties have committed to, are to be met by 2030. Challenged by workshop speakers to think about how social security could do more, participants focused in on two priorities: changing public attitudes towards it, and how well it supports the people in society with the highest poverty rates.

Changing public attitudes

While Holyrood may have created an enabling context, we still don't know enough about underlying public attitudes to social security. But as Stephen Sinclair of Glasgow Caledonian University told us, there has been a powerful 'them and us' divide in how we tend to think about social security, driven by the increasingly damaged idea of 'welfare'.

Tracy Gilmour of the Warrior Mum Project talked about a system that has lost sight of individuals, in contrast to a system which serves a 'well-being model' with the goals of increasing human and social capital in the community.

JRF is committed to building the public will to solve poverty, beyond specific policies and parliamentary terms, so that social security is seen as an essential service valued by the public as much as the NHS; one we can be sure of and thus more likely to support. Public and political will could take us even further, to a system that offers the care, skills and opportunities to get on with our lives, as well as income security.

Before we can arrive at a new consensus, it is clear we need to consider the diverse views of people who use the UK and new Scottish systems, and the wider public who don't (and may think they don't have a stake in the issue).

Groups with higher poverty rates

The real test of strategies to end poverty is how far households with lone parents, disabled adults, or children, benefit from them. A challenge for the new Scottish system that remains unanswered is adequacy. The experience of applying for Scottish replacements for PIP and Child DLA might improve, but these extra cost payments won't have more of a poverty-fighting role unless they rise. One idea proposed by Sally Witcher, Chief Executive of Inclusion Scotland, is a Scottish Disability Payment to families with a disabled adult and/or child.

This could either be a short-term premium under top-up powers (like the Carers Allowance Supplement) before the new Disability Assistance payments for children and working-age adults are fully implemented at a higher rate. Or it could be a targeted payment for lower-income households, like the Scottish Child Payment. Either way, there was a strong sense in the group that Scotland should take a 'gateway' approach, integrating payments with wider support which cuts the poverty premium affecting key goods like fuel and credit, reduces debt, and improves access to appropriate childcare, employment or housing support.

These ideas, and others to be designed alongside people with experience of poverty, will be feeding into JRF's plans in the coming months.

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Building public will for a system that looks after everyone in our society

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One way for more people to find a route out of poverty is through a better system of social security, working as part of a larger system including a stronger contribution from the housing and employment sectors, spurred on by the public and political will to act.

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Question Are different levels of wealth associated with death and disability in older adults in the United States and England?

Findings In this cohort study of 12 173 older adults in the United States and 7599 in England, those in the lowest wealth quintile had significantly higher risk of death and disability than their highest wealth counterparts at all ages studied. This relationship was found across the wealth spectrum in both countries, despite differing safety-net health care systems.

Meaning Policies geared toward decreasing wealth-related disparities in death and disability in older adults should target determinants of health outside of access to health care.

Importance Low income has been associated with poor health outcomes. Owing to retirement, wealth may be a better marker of financial resources among older adults.

Objective To determine the association of wealth with mortality and disability among older adults in the United States and England.

Design, Setting, and Participants The US Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and English Longitudinal Study of Aging (ELSA) are nationally representative cohorts of community-dwelling older adults. We examined 12 173 participants enrolled in HRS and 7599 enrolled in ELSA in 2002. Analyses were stratified by age (54-64 years vs 66-76 years) because many safety-net programs commence around age 65 years. Participants were followed until 2012 for mortality and disability.

Exposures Wealth quintile, based on total net worth in 2002.

Main Outcomes and Measures Mortality and disability, defined as difficulty performing an activity of daily living.

A total of 6233 US respondents and 4325 English respondents aged 54 to 64 years (younger cohort) and 5940 US respondents and 3274 English respondents aged 66 to 76 years (older cohort) were analyzed for the mortality outcome. Slightly over half of respondents were women (HRS: 6570, 54%; ELSA: 3974, 52%). A higher proportion of respondents from HRS were nonwhite compared with ELSA in both the younger (14% vs 3%) and the older (13% vs 3%) age cohorts. We found increased risk of death and disability as wealth decreased. In the United States, participants aged 54 to 64 years in the lowest wealth quintile (Q1) (≤$39 000) had a 17% mortality risk and 48% disability risk over 10 years, whereas in the highest wealth quintile (Q5) (>$560 000) participants had a 5% mortality risk and 15% disability risk (mortality hazard ratio [HR], 3.3; 95% CI, 2.0-5.6; Results P < .001; disability subhazard ratio [sHR], 4.0; 95% CI, 2.9-5.6; P < .001). In England, participants aged 54 to 64 years in Q1 (≤£34,000) had a 16% mortality risk and 42% disability risk over 10 years, whereas Q5 participants (>£310,550) had a 4% mortality risk and 17% disability risk (mortality HR, 4.4; 95% CI, 2.7-7.0; P < .001; disability sHR, 3.0; 95% CI, 2.1-4.2; P  < .001). In 66- to 76-year-old participants, the absolute risks of mortality and disability were higher, but risk gradients across wealth quintiles were similar. When adjusted for sex, age, race, income, and education, HR for mortality and sHR for disability were attenuated but remained statistically significant.

Conclusions and Relevance Low wealth was associated with death and disability in both the United States and England. This relationship was apparent from age 54 years and continued into later life. Access to health care may not attenuate wealth-associated disparities in older adults.

Although the past 50 years have seen significant overall increases in life expectancy worldwide, disparities in mortality along socioeconomic gradients continue to grow, both in the United States and Europe. As the global population ages, there has been a concurrent rise in the rates of disability, raising concerns over whether the gains in longevity are actually contributing to "healthy life expectancy." In the United States, the burden of disability is disproportionately borne by those of low socioeconomic status (SES), and this disparity appears to be growing.

Previous studies of the US population have demonstrated a strong association between low SES and both increased risk of mortality and increased risk of disability. The seminal Whitehall study in the United Kingdom demonstrated similar findings, as have other studies in Europe. Most research to date evaluating the effect of SES on health outcomes has used income as the primary marker of financial resources. When studying older adults who may be retired, overall wealth may be a better marker of financial resources. Numerous studies have demonstrated higher correlation of health outcomes with wealth rather than income alone. Overall wealth takes into account measures not traditionally accounted for by income, such as the value of property, savings, assets, and investments. Wealth may provide a cushion during times of income fluctuation, a fund for unpredictable expenses, and most importantly for older adults, a source of purchasing power during retirement. Previous studies throughout the past 5 decades have evaluated the relationship between wealth and mortality but with significant limitations including studying preretirement mortality only, looking at specialized disease-specific populations, and studying men only. Furthermore, although studies dating back to the 1970s have studied the effect of income on disability, few have looked at the effect of wealth on disability.

The primary aim of our study was to evaluate the wealth-mortality and wealth-disability relationships in a representative sample of older adults in the United States and England using data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and the English Longitudinal Study on Aging (ELSA). We also sought to determine if the initiation of social safety-net programs in either country affected this relationship. In the United States, for most of the population, reaching age 65 years brings eligibility for health insurance coverage through Medicare. For many, at or close to age 65 years, Social Security payments also start to arrive. In England, health care coverage through the National Health Service (NHS) is provided from birth, but the main retirement benefit, called the State Pension, starts at or close to age 65 years. Because many safety-net programs become widely available at or close to age 65 years, our secondary aim was to determine whether the wealth-outcomes relationship differed among adults ages 54 to 64 years vs 66 to 76 years.

We examined community-dwelling participants interviewed in the 2002 wave of HRS, a nationally representative sample of US adults older than 50 years, and ELSA, a nationally representative sample of English adults older than 50 years that is similar in design to HRS. Baseline response rates were 78.0% for HRS and 70.2% for ELSA. In both studies, participants were interviewed biennially on a range of social, health, and economic circumstances. Respondents were followed through 2012 for death and new difficulty in an activity of daily living (ADL).

For the mortality analysis, we created a nationally representative cohort of 19 772 community-dwelling older adults enrolled in HRS (12 173) and ELSA (7599) who were ages 54 to 64 years or 66 to 76 years in the 2002 wave. Respondents who were aged 65 years in 2002 were not included because Medicare enrollment cannot be reliably determined in this age group in HRS. For the disability analysis, those who had ADL difficulty at baseline (HRS, 1568; ELSA, 1374) or missing responses regarding ADL difficulty at baseline (HRS, 4; ELSA; 92) were excluded from the cohort. Respondents without a follow-up ADL assessment were also excluded (HRS, 1710; ELSA, 1421). A total of 13 603 respondents (HRS, 8891; ELSA, 4712) were included in the disability analysis (see eFigure in the Supplement).

The outcome measures of interest were death and disability (defined as the development of any ADL difficulty). In HRS, the date of death was determined using an algorithm that used the National Death Index, Medicare files, and HRS surviving family member exit interviews. In ELSA, year of death was available, but date of death was estimated using a standard approach developed for HRS. If there was no interview during the death year, the date of death was assigned as July first. If the last live interview occurred in the same year as death, the date of death was assigned as the mean date between the last interview date and the last day of the year.

The HRS and ELSA respondents reported difficulty, not expected to improve within 3 months, with any of 5 ADLs: dressing, bathing, eating, getting in and out of bed, and using the toilet. If the answer to any one of these 5 questions was anything other than fully independent, they were considered as having an ADL difficulty.

Wealth was the primary predictor variable of interest and was determined by participant survey response to a number of financial variables. In HRS, we looked at total wealth, which summed financial assets minus debt. Financial assets included the net value of real estate, vehicles, businesses, retirement accounts, stocks/mutual funds, bonds, other savings, mortgages, primary residence, and secondary residence. In ELSA, total wealth was measured similarly except without the value of vehicles (see eMethods in the Supplement for additional details). To quantify the level of wealth and income disparity, we calculated the Gini coefficients for these variables in our study sample. The Gini coefficient measures the inequality among values of a frequency distribution, with 0 expressing perfect equality (eg, all persons have same wealth) and 1 expressing maximal inequality (eg, all wealth controlled by 1 person).

Basic demographic information was available for each participant. Respondents reported physician-diagnosed medical problems. We compared the cohorts by the reported presence of 6 major medical comorbidities at baseline: hypertension, diabetes, cancer, chronic lung disease, heart disease, and psychiatric disease. To get a more global sense of functioning, we compared the cohorts by the number of ADL and instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) impairments at baseline.

All analyses incorporated survey weights to account for the complex survey designs of HRS and ELSA. Baseline weighted 20th, 40th, 60th, and 80th wealth quintiles were computed. To study the association of wealth with death, we fit bivariable Cox proportional hazards models of time-to-death on wealth quintile for each group (age 54-64 years vs 66-76 years; HRS vs ELSA). The cumulative incidence of death was computed for each group. In addition to unadjusted models, models adjusted for age as a continuous variable, income quintile, race, sex, and education were run. We fit 5-way interaction models as part of sensitivity analyses to test whether the effect of wealth quintiles on risk of death and ADL difficulty were modified by age, income, race, sex, or education. To test whether the addition of a mobility measure would affect our results, we conducted a sensitivity analysis adding the ability to "walk across the room" as an additional sixth ADL for the disability analysis.

For the disability analyses, we fit bivariable competing risks Cox models with time to any ADL difficulty as the outcome and death as a competing risk. For each analytic cohort, we computed the cumulative incidence of ADL difficulty by wealth quintile after fitting the competing risks regression models. We tested the proportional-hazards assumption, overall model fit, model accuracy, outliers, and influential data points using standard metrics.

All analyses were performed using SAS (version 9.4, SAS Inc) and Stata (version 14.1, Stata Corp) statistical packages. Because we relied on deidentified data, the University of California, San Francisco institutional review board determined that this project did not qualify as human research, and written informed consent was waived.

Respondent Characteristics

A total of 6233 US respondents and 4325 English respondents aged 54 to 64 years (younger cohort) and 5940 US respondents and 3274 English respondents aged 66 to 76 years (older cohort) were analyzed for the mortality outcome (see eFigure in the Supplement). Slightly over half of respondents were women (HRS: 6570, 54%; ELSA: 3974, 52%). A higher proportion of respondents from HRS were nonwhite compared with ELSA in both the younger (14% vs 3%) and the older (13% vs 3%) age cohorts ( Table 1). We found a more than 100-fold difference in wealth across quintiles. For example, for US respondents aged 66 to 76 years, the lowest wealth quintile (Q1) had a mean wealth of $8366, whereas the highest wealth quintile (Q5) had a mean wealth of $1 363 311. Baseline characteristics were similar between cohorts with regard to marital status, comorbid medical conditions, tobacco use, and number of ADL/IADL difficulties.

Inequality in wealth and income based on Gini coefficients was larger in the United States than in England, and larger for wealth than for income in both countries and both age groups (see eTable 1 in the Supplement). For example, for the older age group, the Gini coefficient for wealth in HRS was 0.65 compared with 0.57 in ELSA, and for these 2 groups the respective coefficients for income were 0.49 and 0.35.

In the younger cohort, decreasing wealth was associated with increased hazard of death ( Figure 1). The HRS respondents in Q1 had a 3.3-fold increased hazard of death compared with their Q5 counterparts (95% CI, 2.0-5.6) ( Table 2). The cumulative incidence of death over 10 years for Q1 respondents was 17%, compared with 5% among Q5 respondents. In the ages 54 to 64 years ELSA cohort, Q1 respondents had a 4.3-fold increased hazard of death as their Q5 counterparts (95% CI, 2.7-7.0). The cumulative incidence of death for the lowest wealth quintile was 16%, compared with 4% for the wealthiest. In both countries, the largest difference in mortality was found between Q1 and Q2, with minimal difference between Q4 and Q5. The HRs from the adjusted model were attenuated, but Q1 continued to have a statistically significantly higher hazard of death compared with Q5 (HRS: HR, 2.0; 95% CI, 1.0-4.0; ELSA: HR, 2.6; 95% CI, 1.5-4.5).

In the younger cohort, the relationship between wealth and disability was similar to the relationship between wealth and mortality ( Figure 2). The US respondents in Q1 had a 4-fold increase in the hazard of any ADL difficulty compared with respondents in Q5 (sHR, 4.0; 95% CI, 2.9-5.6) ( Table 3). Forty-eight percent of Q1 respondents had disability at 10 years, compared with 15% of Q5 respondents. At 2 years, those in Q1 had similar rates of disability as those in Q5 at 10 years ( Figure 2). After 10 years, nearly half of all Q1 respondents had developed an ADL difficulty. Younger English respondents in Q1 had 3-fold increased hazard of any ADL difficulty than their Q5 counterparts (sHR, 3.0; 95% CI, 2.1-4.2). Forty-two percent of Q1 respondents had disability at 10 years, compared with 17% of Q5 respondents. The largest difference in disability in both countries was seen between Q1 and Q2. Sub-HRs from the adjusted model were attenuated, but remained statistically significant in HRS (Q1 vs Q5 sHR, 2.3; 95% CI, 1.5-3.5) and ELSA (Q1 vs Q5 sHR, 2.5; 95% CI, 1.7-3.8).

The wealth-outcomes relationship was similar between the younger and older cohorts. After age 65 years, the absolute rate of both death and disability increased in both HRS and ELSA, but no changes were observed in the relationship between wealth and mortality or ADL difficulty ( Figure 1). Older US respondents in Q1 had a significantly increased hazard of death compared with those in Q5 (HR, 2.2; 95% CI, 1.8-2.6) ( Table 2); 42% of older Q1 US respondents were dead at 10 years. A similar association was present in the older English cohort with a 2-fold increased hazard of death for those in Q1 vs those in Q5 (HR, 2.1; 95% CI, 1.6-2.6); 36% of older Q1 English respondents were dead at 10 years.

The wealth-disability relationship was qualitatively similar to the wealth-mortality relationship and was strong in the older cohort in both the United States and England. Absolute rates of disability at 10 years were high for those with the lowest wealth in both the United States and England, reaching nearly 50% in both countries ( Figure 2). In both the United States and England, older respondents in Q1 had a 2-fold increased hazard of developing an ADL difficulty compared with their Q5 counterparts (HRS: HR; 2.1; 95% CI, 1.8-2.5; ELSA: HR, 2.1; 95% CI, 1.6-2.7). In both countries, the largest gap in death and disability in the older cohort remained between Q1 and Q2, with less difference between Q4 and Q5.

Sensitivity analyses revealed no statistically or clinically significant interactions, nor any change in the wealth-disability relationship with addition of the walking variable (see eTable 2 in the Supplement).

We evaluated the relationship between wealth, mortality, and disability among older adults in both the United States and England. We found that for both 54- to 64-year old adults and 66- to 76-year old adults in both the United States and England, lower wealth was associated with increased hazard of death and disability. Furthermore, the absolute risk of death and disability among those with lowest wealth was high in both countries.

Similar to prior research on more limited cohorts, this study found a strong inverse relationship between wealth and mortality. In addition, this study extended prior work by showing the strong inverse relationship between wealth and disability. Disability is a critically important outcome in older adults that is a strong predictor of quality of life, hospitalization and nursing home placement. We found high rates of disability among the lowest wealth quintile, even in the younger age cohort. The consequences of disability in this group may be disproportionately burdensome. Those with lowest wealth are likely least able to mobilize financial resources to successfully adapt to disabilities through interventions, such as hiring private help, making home modifications, or moving into an assisted living facility.

In our study, the greatest improvements in health outcomes were seen between the lowest wealth quintile (Q1) and the second lowest wealth quintile (Q2). In both countries and in both age groups, those in Q1 had a much higher hazard of death and disability than those in Q2. Therefore, at the low end of the wealth spectrum, relatively small increases in wealth seem to contribute to substantial gains in life expectancy and function. Our findings extend the results of previous studies of income and mortality, which showed the greatest mortality gradient at low income with a continuing but smaller gradient at higher incomes. These results suggest that health systems should be designed to specifically target the needs of individuals with lowest wealth. Policy interventions to decrease disparities will have the highest impact by focusing on society's poorest members.

Though we did not perform direct statistical comparisons, one of the most surprising findings of our study was the lack of major qualitative differences in the wealth-mortality and wealth-disability relationships in the United States and England despite drastically different health care systems in these countries. Furthermore, although age 65 years heralds the arrival of many social support programs in both the United States and England, we found no evidence of lessened wealth-associated disparities after age 65 years. Although some have hypothesized that the initiation of these safety-net programs may attenuate wealth-associated mortality and functionality disparities, our study suggests otherwise. One potential explanation for our findings is that poor health outcomes may stem from cumulative long-term stressors throughout life resulting from low wealth, such as unstable housing, exposure to trauma, and susceptibility to drug and alcohol addiction. Our study suggests that the ability of health care to ameliorate these stressors and improve health later in life is modest. In fact, access to medical care has been estimated to account for only about 10% of avoided preventable mortality in the United States. Furthermore, with a focus on treatment of disease rather than prevention and health promotion, the point of intervention of the health care system in both the United States and England may be too late to change the health trajectory for low-wealth individuals. Thus, our results suggest that in planning for population health, countries should focus on fiscal and social policy in addition to health policy, and target interventions earlier in the lifespan. Future studies involving countries participating in the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) consortium would be of high value in extending this work to other nations.

Strengths and Limitations

This study has both strengths and limitations. Strengths of this study include: (1) the use of wealth instead of income to better capture financial resources in an older population more likely to be retired; (2) our focus on disability, which has been shown to be critically important to patients and predict a wide variety of outcomes; and (3) our ability to compare between the United States and England. One limitation of the disability analysis was a lack of follow-up data or baseline ADL difficulty data for 3282 HRS participants (27%) and 2887 ELSA participants (38%) included in the mortality analysis (see eFigure in the Supplement). Another limitation was the differences between the US and English comparison groups. While ELSA was patterned after HRS and therefore collected similar data, differences exist between the countries (eg, education) that necessitate different approaches to gathering information on certain variables. Finally, we chose the age of 65 years as a significant age for the initiation of certain safety-net programs in both countries, but in reality certain of these programs come into effect at ages other than 65 years in both the United States and England. For example, social security and Medicaid (United States) and State Pension (England) can be started before or after age 65 years.

We found that lower wealth was associated with higher mortality and disability in older adults in both the United States and England. This relationship was apparent from age 54 years and continued into later life. This study found no evidence that providing state-sponsored health insurance from birth (England), or providing state-sponsored health insurance later in life (United States), eliminated wealth-associated health disparities. Our study suggests that policy makers interested in decreasing mortality and function disparities in older adults should take a broad view and consider interventions beyond providing access to health care.

Corresponding Author: Lena K. Makaroun, MD, VA Puget Sound Health Care System, 1660 S Columbian Way, S-152, Seattle, WA 98108 ( makaroun@uw.edu).

Accepted for Publication: July 15, 2017.

Published Online: October 23, 2017. doi: 10.1001/jamainternmed.2017.3903

Author Contributions: Drs Makaroun and Lee had full access to all of the data in the study and take responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis.

Study concept and design: Makaroun, Brown, Ahalt, Lee.

Acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data: Makaroun, Brown, Diaz-Ramirez, Boscardin, Lang-Brown, Lee.

Drafting of the manuscript: Makaroun.

Critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content: Brown, Diaz-Ramirez, Ahalt, Boscardin, Lang-Brown, Lee.

Statistical analysis: Makaroun, Diaz-Ramirez, Boscardin.

Obtained funding: Lee.

Administrative, technical, or material support: Makaroun, Ahalt, Lang-Brown, Lee.

Study supervision: Lee.

Conflict of Interest Disclosures: None reported.

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Wealth-Associated Disparities in Death and Disability in the United States and England

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Question Are different levels of wealth associated with death and disability in older adults in the United States and England? Findings In this cohort study of 12 173 older adults in the United States and 7599 in England, those in the lowest wealth quintile had significantly higher risk of death and disability than their highest wealth counterparts at all ages studied.

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On page 48 of the Conservative manifesto for the general election, "Get Brexit Done. Unleash Britain's Potential", there are the following seemingly fair-sounding and innocuous words:

"After Brexit we also need to look at the broader aspects of our constitution: the relationship between the government, parliament and the courts; the functioning of the Royal prerogative; the role of the House of Lords; and access to justice for ordinary people. The ability of our security services to defend us against terrorism and organised crime is critical. We will update the Human Rights Act and administrative law to ensure that there is a proper balance between the rights of individuals, our vital national security and effective government."

Do you know what? I think they're going to scrap the remaining practical rights and prerogatives of the House of Commons in an act of spite. It will be all the better to allow a government with the support of about 40 per cent of the electorate, and, say, the positive support of a quarter of the adult citizens of the country to do what the hell it wants for five years without pause or interruption. Landslide or not, they will be able to behave as if they have untrammelled power.

It's no secret that Boris Johnson and his allies deeply resented the speakership of John Bercow, and the democratic reforms he made to parliament that made it once again able to exercise its role as the seat of sovereignty in our constitution. The rules of the Commons, albeit some archaic, were used to frustrate, as Johnson would see it, Brexit, though in reality they were only aimed at permitting the Commons to have its own final say on a Brexit deal, and rule out no deal, and nothing more than that.

There were manoeuvres, using emergency debates (Standing Order 24 of the House of Commons' rulebook), the ancient right to send a Humble Address to the Queen, taking control of the order paper (parliamentary agenda), and urgent questions. All were exercised by the Commons taking back control over the order of business of the house and making ministers accountable for their actions.

It would have been more difficult for the backbenchers concerned, dedicated parliamentarians such as Dominic Grieve, Hilary Benn and Oliver Letwin, to have done so without the support of Speaker Bercow. But Bercow was acting purely in the interests of the Commons itself - he was partisan in favour of the institution, which it was his job to defend and champion.

Well, the Johnson administration station, if elected, is going to stop all that malarkey. They will also - it is more or less explicit - interfere in the judiciary and restrict the powers of the Supreme Court to rule on issues such as the prorogation of parliament. There has been talk - not in this manifesto admittedly - of making the judges politically accountable, by being ratified via hearings by parliament, in the way they are in the United States. They have not forgiven Lady Hale and her colleagues for their ruling that the suspension of parliament in the autumn was unlawful, null and void. Neither would I be surprised if they pack the Lords with new and obedient Tory peers.

So there will be legislation to restrict the rights of the Commons itself, of the independent judiciary and maybe even the civil service to make sure that the next Tory government is not troubled by such interference, or what we know as the independent checks and balances of our constitution.

If the 2017-19 parliament saw the biggest attempt by the Commons to take back control in 300 plus years, then the one that starts in a few weeks will see the biggest power grab by the executive since Charles I tried it on. Whether speaker Lindsay Hoyle can withstand the wave of legislation being passed by toadying and pliant Tory MPs is hard to imagine, and the recent purge and the manifesto loyalty pledge has turned them into Johnsonite automatons - Hoyle simply hasn't the powers to stop it.

The replacement of the Human Rights Act is another example of their contempt for, well, human rights - and it begs the question of whether the UK will, in fact, withdraw from the European convention itself.

You need to understand the real power of the manifesto commitment that a Johnson government will "ensure that judicial review is available to protect the rights of the individuals against an overbearing state, while ensuring that it is not abused to conduct politics by another means or to create needless delays".

That, it might fairly be said, is the first hint of the forthcoming Gina Miller Revenge Bill, to go alongside the John Bercow (Reversal) Bill and the Enemies of the People and Spiderwoman (Baroness Hale) Reform Bill.

Of course, the Johnson government will go about this dismantling of judicial democratic protections through the time-honoured procedure of setting up a tame, "independent" body - a "Constitution, Democracy and Rights Commission" that "will examine these issues in-depth, and come up with proposals to restore trust in our institutions and in how our democracy operates". I think you know what that means. A gang of trusties and patsies will be lined up to do what Johnson wants. I bet Bercow won't be invited to get on board.

For the next few years, there will be a new but familiar because mantra that echoes the "will of the people" lines we have had since the 2016 referendum. The Tories got a mandate; the people have spoken; they can do as they wish; the manifesto is sacred; it means what we want it to mean; no pretentious metropolitan elite is going to be permitted to chuck spanners in the works again.

The prime ministerial prerogative to hold a general election when it can best be won by rigging it - through tax cuts and an artificial economic boom - will be restored through the repeal of the Fixed-term Parliament Act. The Tories will be the beneficiaries of yet another unfair advantage. No more will a troublesome "zombie parliament" daring to stand up for its rights obstruct minsters who now lack the popular support to get Brexit done or whatever other scheme they have in hand.

By, say, 2021, Boris Johnson will be free to just shut parliament down, for as long as he finds convenient. That really should frighten you. Don't say he hasn't tried to do it before.

And just to make sure the next election is properly skewed in their favour, the Conservatives will spend £14m on fixing the virtually non-existent problem of voter ID fraud in Britain. This, there is little doubt, is a direct lift from the tricks the Republicans have played at state level in the US, with the right to vote and suppression of the franchise aimed at the poor and minorities. That too will be coming and there is no chance that it can be taken to judicial review either, or changed under human rights legislation that will be radically weakened.

These overlooked paragraphs in the manifesto, then, amount to an assault on your rights. They are not quite the arid constitutional arguments they might seem, and nowhere near as balanced and reasonable-sounding as they appear. The thing that we all ought to have learned by now is that you cannot trust these Tories to tell you the truth about anything. But there is enough there for us to read between the lines.

We are headed for what a Conservative statesman of a previous generation, Lord Hailsham, famously called an "elective dictatorship". The Johnson government, more than most, would like to pass whatever bills it likes when it likes, with the Commons confined to being a rubber stamp. The Commons will only have the ultimate power of a vote of no confidence available to it - a deterrent so powerful it would bring down a government, and is therefore useless in trying to do what parliament wants them to do day-to-day.

What are the chances, do you suppose, that we will see the powers of the Electoral Commission strengthened? For social media and new forms of communication to be fairly regulated? To curb the epidemic of "fake news"? To control party funding and donations from foreign or shady corporates and individuals? To guard against foreign meddling and manipulation? Not a word of such things in the Tory manifesto, apart from one vague commitment about interference. And you wonder why?

Prime Minister Johnson will be presidential, if not dictatorial; able to control everything, adding these new powers to his already comprehensive hold on patronage, public spending, taxation and the rest. There is something obvious you can do about it on 12 December, but after that, maybe not.

Johnson will act like an elected dictator who will scrap our democracy

Johnson will act like an elected dictator who will scrap our democracy

By, say, 2021, Boris Johnson will be free to just shut parliament down, for as long as he finds convenient. That really should frighten you. Don't say he hasn't tried to do it before

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The Tory manifesto is a sign of things to come - an elected dictator who will scrap our democracy | Sean O'Grady

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On page 48 of the Conservative manifesto for the general election, "Get Brexit Done. Unleash Britain's Potential", there are the following seemingly fair-sounding and innocuous words: "After Brexit we also need to look at the broader aspects of our constitution: the relationship between the government, parliament and the courts; the functioning of the Royal prerogative; the role of the House of Lords; and access to justice for ordinary people.

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It's against the law for a school or other education provider to treat disabled students unfavourably. This includes:

direct discrimination, for example refusing admission to a student or excluding them because of disability

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All publicly funded pre-schools, nurseries, state schools and local authorities must try to identify and help assess children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

If a child has an an education, health and care (EHC) plan or a statement of special educational needs, these must be reviewed annually. From year 9 the child will get a full review to understand what support they will need to prepare them for adulthood.

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You can also ask local social services for an assessment to help with your day-to-day living needs.

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Find out about protection for disabled people from discrimination at work, in education or dealing with the police

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Disability and Education - National Strategy

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Disability and Education - National Strategy

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We have published the Government's National Disability Strategy .

Over one in five people in the UK are disabled.
'What does disability mean to me? The usual connotations - I find it harder to do certain things than others would. I see things differently. I don't struggle. I have just spent my life finding efficient ways of getting round the challenges I've had.' - Beth
Our vision is to transform the everyday lives of disabled people by tackling the barriers people face. So we can build back better towards a society that works for everyone. The strategy sets out immediate actions we will take on our path towards a longer-term goal, rooting the strategy in the everyday experience of disabled people.

This series explains the strategy's eight key themes, and how we are making improvements to every part of a disabled person's day. From the moment someone gets up to the moment they end their day.

Education: ensuring children and young people fulfil their potential

Access to education is a cornerstone to our society, but it can be difficult for many pupils to receive the support they need to get the education they deserve. In the National Disability Strategy, we have committed to improving the experience for disabled people.

Going to school

The school day can be challenging for some disabled children. In the UK, 8% of children are disabled as defined under the Equality Act 2010.
'When I was in the Juniors at Primary School we had a cloakroom where we hung our coats. Due to being short I was unable to reach the pegs so a peg was put lower down for me on the wall. Whilst I was very grateful for this it meant that my peg stayed in the same place for all the years I was in the Juniors. Every year we would move up a line in the cloakroom, I never did. This meant that I missed out on all the talk that went on in the cloakroom with my classmates. I was always in the line for year 3 even when I was in year 4, 5 and 6.' - Donna
SEND system

The Department for Education made radical changes to the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) system in England in 2014. These changes extended support to everyone aged 25 and under and aimed to improve outcomes by putting the child or young person at the centre of the system.

Despite the investment and good practice prompted by these reforms, disabled children and young people are not always experiencing improved outcomes as a result.

DfE will consult on improvements to the SEND system through the SEND Review, due for publication in 2021.

The SEND Review will focus on improving support and preparing disabled children and young people for fulfilled adulthood.
'My school has always strived to include me in lessons: sending lesson plans ahead of the lesson so they can be made more accessible; setting me a question at the start of the lesson to give me plenty of time to write my answer and adapting tests so my level of understanding could be assessed without too much repetition. Using a spelling board to say everything I want can be exhausting, but with these changes I feel I can contribute as a valued member of the class.' - Jonathan, aged 14
Adulthood and university

We want disabled young people to be supported and have positive experiences as they transition to adulthood. This remains a challenging time for some.

A disabled person with a degree is still no more likely to be in work than a non-disabled person whose highest qualification is at GCSE.

23% of disabled people had a degree or equivalent in 2020, compared with 39.7% of non-disabled people. 38% of disabled people who responded to the UK Disability Survey said that concerns about other people's views have stopped them from pursuing education.
'One of the biggest things that the Open University has given me is belief in myself and in my own actions and ability. When they said I wouldn't, I didn't. When I believed I could, I did.' - Amy
We are taking immediate action to improve education for disabled people.

What are our next steps?

improve support for children and young people in England with SEND in the financial year 2021 to 2022, including

completing a wide-ranging review to improve outcomes

an extra £730 million the high needs revenue funding for children and young people with more complex needs

an extra £300 million to improve existing school provision and accessibility

boost professional development for those supporting children and young people with SEND

support improvements to the supported internships programme

increase the number of disabled people entering into apprenticeships and ensure that those who start an apprenticeship go on to thrive.

This is only the beginning.

We see the National Disability Strategy as a dynamic plan that we will refresh regularly in response to disabled people's priorities.

Join the conversation

Want to know more about the National Disability Strategy?

Read about the other seven Strategy themes:

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We have published the Government's National Disability Strategy . Over one in five people in the UK are disabled. 'What does disability mean to me? The usual connotations - I find it harder to do certain things than others would. I see things differently. I don't struggle.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The exclusion of disabled children from ordinary schools, which occurred routinely in England until the late twentieth century, is mirrored in the way disability and difference have been largely ignored in the history of education. The first half of this paper outlines some of the key developments that have taken place in the field of education and disability, with reference to changes in the social and intellectual context since 1960. The second half of the paper provides an appraisal of contemporary approaches to the historiography of education and disability, in the light of the discussion in the previous sections. It is suggested that the different kinds of historical work that have been carried out can be linked to differences in the way the identity and interests of disabled children have been conceptualized. Existing work undertaken in disciplines such as disability studies and critical policy studies, and less orthodox historical research such as narrative and 'insider perspective' research, provides fresh starting points for future research in the history of disability and education.

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History of Education

Journal of the History of Education Society

Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713599897

Disability, Education and Social Change in England

since 1960

Felicity Armstrong

Online Publication Date: 01 July 2007

To cite this Article:Armstrong, Felicity (2007) 'Disability, Education and Social

Change in England since 1960', History of Education, 36:4, 551 - 568

To link to this article: DOI:10.1080/00467600701496849

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00467600701496849

Disability, Education and Social Change in England since 1960

Disability and disabled people are under-represented in the history of education. The

exclusion of disabled children from ordinary schools which occurred routinely until

the late 20

th

century, is mirrored in the way disability and difference have been largely

ignored in formal historical work.

1

Richard Altenbaugh has argued that disability has

not been treated in the same way as social categories such as race, class and gender

and historians have „generally neglected disability itself as a mark of inequality‟.

2

It

could be argued that this neglect is underpinned by an understanding of impairment as

being a natural or implicitly justifiable reason for marginalisation, in contrast to

inequalities experienced by other social categories.

The history of the relationship between education and disability in England in recent

years has been marked by struggles over participation, social attitudes and rights

within a period of rapid social and economic change. Dominant assumptions about

impairment, the experience of disabled people and their social roles have been

increasingly challenged by the Disability movement and Disability scholars, and

within human rights debates and organisations. Legislation such as the Disability

Discrimination Act (1995) and the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act

(2001) have attempted to remove some of the barriers to access and participation in

education, the environment, employment and ordinary social life, marking an

apparent cultural shift in official assumptions, expectations and opportunities.

1

For example, In A History of English Education from 1760

1

, first published in 1947,

with a 2

nd

edition in 1966, Barnard devoted approximately 3 pages out of 334, to

special education. See Barnard, H.C. A History of English Education from 1760.

London: University of London Press, 1947.

2

Altenbaugh, Richard J. “Where are the disabled in the History of Education? The

Impact of Polio on Sites of Learning”. History of Education 35 no. 6 (2006) 705-730.

However, the effects of discriminatory structures, attitudes and practices are still

deeply rooted as evidenced, for example, by the numbers of children identified as

having „special educational needs‟ attending segregated schools or units in England

3

,

the economic status of disabled people and the low levels of participation by disabled

people in Higher Education and employment.

The aim of the first half of this paper is to outline some of the key developments

which have taken place in the field of education and disability, particularly since 1944

with some reference to changes in social and intellectual context since 1960. These

changes have included a critical re-evaluation of existing historical work and the

emergence of new approaches which recognise subjectivity, multiple levels of

experience, the micro-politics of power, and the centrality of discourse in the study of

social relationships. The second half of the paper is concerned with the historiography

of education and disability and considers some of the different approaches which have

been adopted to historical analysis in the field in the recent period.

“Education and the Handicapped, 1760-1960” – on the cusp of change.

D.G.Pritchard‟s major work

4

Education and the Handicapped, 1760-1960, published

in 1963, marks a transition stage in terms of historical enquiry in the field of disability

and education. It provides a useful starting point for a discussion of some subsequent

and contrasting developments, both in the history of education and provision for

disabled students, and the ways these have been researched and written about.

Pritchard‟s work

is an example of a „modernist‟ approach in which historians engage

in a „quest for revealed truth‟ involving the „discovery, identification of hidden

structures, and the „digging up of clues‟

5

. The challenge to historians of the period

was not to explore different „realities‟ or „interpretations‟ of the world from different

perspectives, in which the „voices‟ of insiders are regarded as key in constructing

3

Segregation trends – LEAs in England 2002-2004 (Bristol: Centre for Studies on

Inclusive Education, 2005); Department for Education and Skills First Release.

Special Educational Needs in England, January 2006. Department for Education and

Skills, National Statistics, SFR 23/2006.

4

Pritchard, D. Education and the Handicapped 1760-1960. London: Routledge &

KeganPaul, 1963.

5

McCulloch, G. and W. Richardson. Historical Research in Educational Settings.

Buckingham: Open University Press, 2000: 30

different narratives, but a rational and empirical search for „truths‟ in a knowable,

researchable world. The modernist tradition was „part of a conservative commitment

to realism that theory is unnecessary, epistemology and methodology being largely a

matter of common-sense.‟

6

It is this „common-sense‟ tradition which has been

challenged, if not trounced, by new, fundamentally different approaches to historical

enquiry which reflect the changing cultural understandings and socio-political

struggles over the past forty-five years.

The material in Pritchard‟s book provides a detailed account of structures, pedagogies

and practices in the education of disabled children over a period of 200 years. The

author‟s sources were extensive and included legislation, official reports, conference

proceedings, books and articles. It is an example, perhaps, of what Foucault referred

to as „history as that which transforms documents into monuments‟

7

. I will return to

Pritchard‟s work in the second half of the paper.

The work of Foucault, also referred to later in this paper, made a key contribution in

refocusing attention away from „grand narratives‟ featuring prominent historical

figures, legislation, and notions of “evolution and recurrence” which were part of the

dominant social-historical paradigms.

8

Foucault‟s „genealogical‟ approach recognised

„...the events of history, its jolts, its surprises, its unsteady victories, and unpalatable

defeats - the basis for all beginnings, atavisms, and heredities.‟ O‟Brien describes this

approach as appearing

...deceptively simple: recognizing and juxtaposing differences in search of

the manifestation of power that permeates all social relations. Power is a

complex phenomenon that challenges positivist assumptions. Foucault‟s

method allows us to perceive how societies function. Studying power

through discourse allows us to perceive the moment when new technologies

of power are introduced.

9

This understanding, which is in profound contrast with Pritchard‟s approach, is

relevant to some of the work which has been carried out in recent years in the field of

6

Parker, C. The English Historical Tradition since 1850. Edinburgh: John Donald,

1990: 199-200, cited in McCulloch and Richardson ibid:

7

Foucault, M Archaeology of Knowledge. London: Tavistock, 1972

8

O‟Brien, P. “Michel Foucault‟s History of Culture.” In The New Cultural History

edited by Lynn Hunt. California: University of California Press, 1989

9

O‟Brien, P. Ibid, 38.

disability which critically explores the role of professionals and the discourses and

power relations invested in their „expertise‟ and involves systems of categorisation

and labelling,

10

or „regimes of truth‟.

Another important influence on the way history has been re-conceptualised in seeking

to understand social and historical change, relates to the cultural explorations of social

historians such as E.P Thompson and Natalie Davis in the early nineteen seventies

which sought to „give voice and life to the peasants, workers, and artisans they

studied.‟

11

The emergence of this kind of work reflects the political and social

„egalitarian‟ upheavals of the nineteen sixties and a growing awareness of social

inequalities. It challenged the historical silencing of working class people, and of

marginalised groups, and opened up new ways of exploring social history and

legitimated new kinds of material. This is also relevant to some of the more recent

work in the history of education and disabled people which focuses on the importance

of „voice‟ and narrative histories and will be returned to.

In tracing an outline of some of the key developments which have taken place in the

field of education and disability, I adopt an economical and linear approach in

providing some key features and facts rather, than a more textured, critical and

analytical account. It is precisely this kind of teleological „writing of history‟ which is

critiqued in the second part this paper, and which is now regarded as very limited in

terms of understanding historical and social change. However, some kind of

„historical background‟ is required and it is not possible, in the space available, to

cover such a large period and complex subject matter in a way which recognises

subjectivity, contradiction, multiplicity and the richness and diversity of human

experience. The account in the next section is, therefore, only a bare skeletal, surface

account of the development of education and disability, and gives no insight into the

social and cultural relations and struggles which underpin it. In the second part of this

paper, I will discuss some alternative approaches to exploring the historical

development of education and disability.

10

Billington, T. Separating, Losing and Excluding Children: Narratives of

Difference. London: RoutledgeFalmer, 2000.

11

Desan, S. “Crowds, Community, and Ritual in the work of E.P.Thompson and

Natalie Davis”. In The New Cultural History edited by Lynn Hunt. California:

University of California Press, 1989

Disabled children, education and legislation - a ‘linear’ account

The setting up of educational structures for children with impairments can be traced

back to the eighteenth century in England, although there were many earlier examples

of institutions established by religious orders, and later examples set up by lay

voluntary associations funded by charities

12

and philanthropists. Prior to the 1870s,

many disabled children from poorer families were sent to workhouses, reformatory or

industrial schools

13

where they sometimes received basic education and training.

There were also the lunatic asylums where children and adults diagnosed as insane or

„mentally defective‟ were placed, and where they sometimes received education and

training,

14

but the residential special schools, which were located in asylums

controlled by doctors, psychiatrists and philanthropists, were detached from the

education sector and the influence of educationists.

15

The dominance of the early

history of special education by medicine and psychiatry has had a profound and long-

lasting influence on perceptions of disabled children and the kind of provision made

for them which has been characterised by care, control, therapy and remediation.

Formal education structures designated for disabled children began to develop

following the introduction of elementary education through the education acts of

1870, 1876 and 1880. The Report of the Royal Commission on the Blind, the Deaf, the

Dumb and Others of the United Kingdom (The Egerton Report) published in 1889

16

,

was underpinned by a pragmatic and moral commitment to providing elementary

technical education for blind people rather than „support them through a life of

12

Sutherland, G. „The origins of special education.‟ In The Practice of Special

Education, edited by Will Swann. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1981: 94.

13

Hurt, J.S. Outside the Mainstream: A History of Special Education. London:

Batsford, 1988.

14

One example of this was the Starcross asylum near Exeter which was later

developed as a residential special school. See Dale, P. „Tension in the

voluntary-statutory alliance: “Lay professionals‟ and the planning and delivery of

mental deficiency services, 1917-1945.” In Mental Illness and Learning Disability

since 1850: Finding a place for mental disorder in the United Kingdom edited by

Dale, P. and J. Melling. London: Routledge, 2006.

15

Dale, P. “Special Education at Starcross before 1948.” History of Education, 36,

no 1 (2007): 17-44

16

Report of the Royal Commission on the Blind, the Deaf, the Dumb and Others of

the United Kingdom (The Egerton Report). London: HMSO. (1889)

idleness‟.

17

These twin projects – that of economic rationalism and the moral

imperative of productive labour – have dominated the history of responses to

disability and the provision of education and training in England.

The burgeoning of the medical and therapeutic professions

18

, the interest in eugenics

19

and the refining of categorisations of defects and deficiency, as well as the increasing

involvement of the state in social welfare and education since the late nineteenth

century, fostered the growth in special education. It was also influenced by a number

of other, sometimes conflicting, factors, including contemporary humanitarian values,

a growing societal commitment to formal education, the need for a literate and

manageable workforce, and the development and strengthening of local education

authorities. These all played a part in the development of the network of structures

which made up the special education system that developed during the first half of the

twentieth century.

The 1944 Education Act (UK) introduced eleven „categories of handicap‟ and

guidance concerning provision for each category and degree of impairment. It

widened access to formal state education by drawing large numbers of disabled

children into the education system for the first time and gave Local Education

Authorities responsibility for their education. Significantly, the 1944 Education Act

decreed that all children, with the exception of those deemed to be „uneducable‟,

should receive „efficient full-time education suitable to his age, aptitude and ability

either by regular attendance at schools or otherwise‟.

Sunsequently, the Education (Handicapped Children) Act (1970) made local

education authorities responsible for the education of all children, bringing every

child into the education system, regardless of impairment or learning difficulty.

17

Quoted in Tomlinson, S. A Sociology of Special Education. London: Routledge and

Kegan Paul, 1982: 13.

18

Potts, P. “Medicine, Morals and Mental Deficiency: the contribution of doctors to

the development of special education in England.” Oxford Review of Education 9, no3

(1983): 181-196

19

Barker, D. “How to Curb the Fertility of the Unfit: the feeble-minded in Edwardian

Britain.” Oxford Review of Education 9, no 3 (1983): 197-211

The Warnock Report (1978)

20

challenged dominant assumptions that there were „two

types of children, the handicapped and the non-handicapped‟ and that the

categorisation of impairment was a justification for „special‟ provision. It argued that

the term „handicapped‟ provided no information about educational need, marking an

important change of emphasis. Disabled children were not to be seen as the recipients

of therapy and care, but as learners with an entitlement to education. The 1981

Education Act which followed enshrined the term „special educational needs‟ in

legislation, ostensibly replacing the categories of impairment encoded by the 1944

Education Act. Provision was made for the introduction of statutory assessment of

learning difficulties to establish whether a child had special educational needs,

introducing the new label „SEN‟, and what these needs were. „Statements‟ of special

educational needs, stipulating the nature of the „needs‟, how they should be met, and

the resources required, were drawn up for some children as an outcome of multi-

professional assessment procedures. These procedures themselves had important

implications in terms of educational provision and resources and engendered a

massive rise in the number of professional assessments carried out. Paradoxically,

although the term special educational needs focused on educational needs rather than

individual impairments, it became a globalising category denoting difference or

learning difficulty which co-existed with the established categories of impairment,

and alongside new ones.

More recently legislation such as the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act

(2001) adopted a change of emphasis in establishing a duty to educate children with

special educational needs in mainstream schools, but this duty remains contingent and

provisional as it applies only if „...it is compatible with the wishes of the parent and

the „provision of efficient education for other children‟. These are some of the „bare

bones‟ of key legislative changes in the development of special education in England.

They say little about the wider social contexts in which they occurred and nothing

about the experiences of disabled children.

20

Department of Education and Science. Special Educational Needs. Report of the

Committee of Enquiry into the education of handicapped children and young

people(Warnock Report). London: HMSO. 1978

Special education and social change

Special education, its structures, practices and purposes, are embedded in wider

cultural values and social change. For example, the collusion of eugenics with

humanitarianism and the growth in the power of the state at the end of the 19

th

century

and the during the first part of the 20

th

century, were the architects of the growth and

character of special education and these influences were played out in debates and

policy developments throughout the twentieth century.

21

Changes in social life brought about by war have also influenced perceptions about

impairment and disabled people and, in turn, have influenced the development of

special education. During the Second World War the infrastructures of ordinary

schooling, special education and residential institutions were profoundly affected by

the blitz, the evacuation of children from the cities, the widespread disruption in

education services and a massive reduction in human resources and basic amenities.

In 1941, for example, the number of disabled children attending special schools in

London was reduced by 50% and many attended ordinary schools. These changes

prepared and the growing belief that special schools should be brought into the

general education system paved the way for the 1944 Education Act. The post-war

21

This is well expressed in C.W.Hutt‟s Crowley‟s Hygiene of School Life, (London:

Methuen, 1910:16-17). “The newer views and outlook upon life which this opening

century has brought, the increased development of social consciousness and of

communal responsibility, together with the publication of the results of investigations

by various observers, have (...) served to arouse and even alarm the public. In

addition, the great fact is steadily becoming admitted that these conditions of

defective physique are the results of causes (...) capable of removal and therefore to

be removed”. Insight into the eugenicist thinking of the time can be found in

C.W.Saleeby‟s book The Progress of Eugenics (London: Cassell, 1914: 208-209.

“For the greater number of cases where the principle of negative eugenics apply,

permanent care or segregation of the individual is the remedy, if only because the

individual would require such treatment even were he sterile, or were his defect not

hereditary. No problem arises, therefore, except to silence stupid legislators. Nor does

the question of possible sterilisation arise, for there is no such need where the

individual will be permanently cared for. But the case is entirely different when we

consider (a) the “impure dominant” and (b) the “recessive,” whose defect, such as

deafness, does not need segregation on individual grounds, and whole segregation on

eugenic grounds cannot be seriously contemplated. In some types of case, if

sterilisation without mutilation or personal injury be found perfectly feasible, the

choice between segregation and such sterilisation – a far more humane and less severe

measure – might conceivably be offered to the individual. But I should be inclined to

rely far more upon the spread of eugenic knowledge, upon the creation of a eugenic

conscience, and upon the self-control which we might hope such individuals would

exercise.”

period marked a shift in emphasis in terms of the power and responsibility of different

agencies in the governance of social life. Thus, since the post-war period medical

officers have no longer been the designated decision makers regarding diagnosis and

educational placement. The local education authorities took on the role of co-

ordinating the assessment process and making the final decision about special

education placements, although medical professionals have continued to play an

important role in assessment procedures and outcomes.

The growth of the welfare state during the post-war period, with the provision of

services which were seen as a common social good – rather than a national economic

drain on resources signalling economic and social dependency – also marked changes

in perceptions about disability. As in the cases of illness, poverty and housing, rather

than being a purely private and personal problem, impairment and disability came, to

some extent, to be regarded as a social issue legitimately requiring state support and

intervention. At the same time, the legacy and continual refinement of systems and

procedures concerning the diagnosis, categorisation and medicalisation of impairment

and the important role played by professionals in these processes, lead to a continued

pathologising and othering of disabled children in the education system. It is against

this background that changes in special education and educational responses to

disability need to be understood.

The 1960s were characterised by a spirit of optimism and openness in terms of social

values and the need to address social inequalities in education. The Newsom Report

(1963)

22

was indicative of this mood, in revealing vast differences in the quality of

education received by children, according to class and social location. It

recommended the raising of the school leaving age from 15 to 16, calling for action to

address inadequacies of the system such as overcrowding and poor facilities, and for

research into teaching methods to overcome environmental and linguistic deficiencies.

However, the vision underpinning the Newsom Report did little to challenge

educational divisions based on the outcomes of education, as it was primarily

concerned with providing education which would prepare children and young people

22

Report of the Minister of Education‟s central Advisory Council Half Our Future

(The Newsom Report). 1963

for their future roles in society which were largely defined by class and existing

perceptions of ability.

23

The Labour government Circular 10/65 (1965) invited all un-reorganised LEAs to

submit plans for the introduction of comprehensive schools and an end to selection at

the age of 11, but did not make this obligatory. The 1944 Education Acts, the

Newsom Report, the development of comprehensive education, and the

implementation of the 1970 (Handicapped Children) Act were all precursors to

debates on integration of disabled children into ordinary schools. Other changes were

taking place in society during the 1960 and 1970s. For example, the numbers of

children with conditions such as congenital heart disease, tuberculosis of the joints,

rheumatic fever, spina bifida and cerebral palsy had decreased dramatically over the

past twenty years. Advances in medical knowledge and surgical techniques, made

more children less dependent on care and management, and more likely candidates for

„education‟.

24

There were a number of key factors which influenced developments in special

education during the period between the 1970s and early 1980s, including the growth

in self-advocacy groups and parent pressure groups.

25

Research began to raise

questions about the quality of education provided by special schools and there

emerged a critical debate about the categorisation and „labelling‟ of children.

26

The

development of „resource bases‟ attached to mainstream schools lead to a gradual

blurring of the boundaries between some mainstream and special schools, and the

presence of children identified as having special educational needs or a disability

became increasingly „natural‟. These factors, and the emergence of a „critical

literature‟ in sociology of education, which developed a critique of the notion of

„special needs‟ and special education signalled a widespread re-evaluation of the

principles of segregated special education. In many respects, these issues reflected

23

McCulloch, G. Failing the Ordinary Child? The theory and practice of working-

class secondary education. Buckingham: Open University Press, 1998

24

Hurt Ibid.

25

Jones, Neville J. “Policy Change and Innovation for Special Needs in Oxfordshire.”

Oxford Review of Education 9 no 3 (1983): 241-254.

26

For example, Swann, W. The Practice of Special Education. Oxford: Basil

Blackwell/Open University Press, 1981.

wider social change and social movements in support of civil rights, participation and

political struggles around identity and self-realisation.

However, the global movements of the 1960s and 1970s which claimed civil rights

and equality of treatment focussed in particular on inequalities based on class,

opportunity and discrimination on the grounds of race, gender and sexuality. During

the social changes and political and cultural upheaval which occurred in the 1960s

disabled people remained on the outside in terms of recognition. Tom Shakespeare

27

links the liberation struggles of the 1960s to the politicisation and growth of the

disability movement, but as Karen Hirsch observes in relation to the USA,

compared to the impact on historical studies of the Black freedom movement and the

women‟s movement (...) the disability rights movement has had little effect on

historical scholarship.

28

The development of the Disability movement, and its fight to make visible the

oppression of disabled people and campaign for the full participation of disabled

children in mainstream education, have been crucial in the ways in which perceptions

about disability and rights have been transformed. At the forefront of these struggles

in England have been disabled people‟s organisations such as the Integration Alliance

and Young and Powerful and others such as the centre for Studies on Inclusive

Education (CSIE), all of which have campaigned for the recognition of the rights of

disabled children and for their „voices to be heard‟. At the same time, theorisations

around the role of the „experiential‟ and the notion of voice have become increasingly

important in research literature, particularly in support of a human and civil rights

agenda.

29

.

Education, disabilities and social change

27

Shakespeare, T “Disabled people‟s self-organisation: A new social movement?” In

Overcoming disabling barriers: 18 years of Disability and Society, edited by

L.Barton. London: Routledge, 2006.

28

Hirsch, K. “Culture and Disability: the role of oral history.” In The Oral History

Reader, edited by R.Perks and A.Thomson. London: Routledge, 1998.

29

Moore, M., S. Beazley, J.Maelzer. Researching Disability Issues. Buckingham:

Open University Press, 1998; Shakespeare, T. “Rules of engagement: doing disability

research”, Disability and Society 11 no 1 (1996): 115-119

Debates about whether „history‟ is concerned with constructing accounts of „what

happened‟ through the collection of „facts‟, or whether history can only be understood

as an infinite array of multiple experiences and perspectives, rest on differences which

are both theoretical and political. As Mary Fuller observes in the Preface to her book

on Historical Theory:

...all history writing inevitably entails taking a stand on key theoretical issues,

whether or not the historian is aware of these – and many practising historians

are not. There is no escape from having a theoretical position, whether explicit

or implicit.

30

Such debates open up useful routes into approaches to the history of education and

disability developed over the past 40 years. Differences in theoretical approaches in

this field are closely linked to contrasting positions on the way the notion of disability

has been theorised and represented. The embracing of the Social Model of disability,

31

regardless of which particular interpretation is adopted, has profound implications for

the way the purposes of education are understood, and the way histories are written.

The traditional divide between sociology and history has, until recently, been largely

followed in Disability Studies – heavily weighted in favour of the sociologists – and

„education‟ has not been the first concern of academics in the field. Articles on issues

related to education and disability appear relatively rarely in the sociological journal

Disability and Society and, although more general historical articles are published

fairly frequently, these rarely explore educational histories. Anne Borsay notes that

„history is a missing piece of the jigsaw in disability studies‟

32

, and she explains this

in terms of the „formative influence‟ of sociology in disability studies and the „alien

nature‟ of historical methodology to social scientists. Furthermore, the „late arrival of

social history as a specialism within historical scholarship‟ and, she argues, the

reproduction of the social discrimination experienced by disabled people in academic

discourse, have also contributed to the scarcity of historical work in Disability

30

Fuller, M. Historical Theory. London: Routledge, 2002, ix.

31

The „social model‟ of disability stresses the social construction of disability in

contrast to the „medical model‟ which focuses on individual impairment. See Hahn,

H. “Adjudication or empowerment: contrasting experiences with a social model of

disability.” In Disability, Politics and the Struggle for Change, edited by L.Barton.

London: David Fulton, 2001.

32

Borsay, A. “History, Power and Identity.” In Disability Studies Today, edited by

C.Barnes, M.Oliver and L.Barton. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2002

Studies. However, increasing numbers of researchers in disability and education have

turned to historical texts and engaged in historical enquiry and critique of their own as

a prerequisite to an exploration of current themes.

33

Patricia Potts, for example, has

explored the categorisation of children and the way their needs are defined by

professionals on the basis of perceived impairment, through a historical study of the

involvement of doctors in special education and their role in diagnosis and labelling.

34

Jane Read and Jan Walmsley have explored documentary evidence from the public

and private domains in an attempt to reinterpret historical accounts of special

education. They were particularly interested in uncovering the „authentic voice of

disabled children and parents in the past‟, but observed that they were unable to find

the „voices of recipients of early forms of special education. The historical record is

documented only in the professional voice.‟

35

There have been many approaches to describing and analysing history in relation to

policy, experience and marginalised groups in education over the past 40 years. For

example, Kevin Myers and Anna Brown have explored the historiography of mental

deficiency in relation to special school leavers in Birmingham in the first part of the

twentieth century

36

. They identify three broad categories of historical studies of

special education. The first adopts:

...the perspective of the policy maker and the administrator (...) as problems

emerge and solutions develop. Individuals feature prominently and, in the older

histories in particular, are lauded for the warmth of their humanity and the

wisdom of their vision. Progress follows from the noble and benevolent

intentions of voluntary effort...

33

See Hall, J.T. Social Devaluation and Special Education: The Right to Full

Mainstream Inclusion and an Honest Statement. London: Jessica Kinglsey, 1997;

Copeland, I. The Making of the Backward Pupil in Education in England. London:

Woburn Press, 1999; Race, D.G., ed. Learning Disability – A Social Approach.

London: Routledge, 2002; Armstrong, D. Experiences of Special Education: Re-

evaluating policy and practice through life stories. London: RoutledgeFalmer, 2003;

Armstrong, F. Spaced Out: Policy, Difference and the Challenge of Inclusive

Education. London: Kluwer, 2003.

34

Potts, P. “Medicine, Morals and mental deficiency: the contribution of doctors to

the development of special education in England.” In Oxford Review of Education, 9

no. 3 (1983): 181-196

35

Read, J. and J.Walmsley. “Historical Perspectives on Special Education, 1890-

1970.” Disability and Society, 21 no.5 (2006): 455-469

36

Myers, K. and A. Brown. “Mental Deficiency: The Diagnosis and After-Care of

Special School Leavers in early twentieth Century Birmingham (UK).” Journal of

Historical Sociology. 18 nos 1/2 (2005) 72-98

Myers and Brown critique this approach on the grounds that it has

... little or no conception of the structural relations that impact upon the

perception and resolution of particular educational “problems”. It effectively

silences the voices of the people deemed mentally deficient or in need of special

schooling.

37

Their second broad category of historiography in relation to special schooling is

„sociologically and analytically based‟, and focuses on „production‟ and the way in

which historically special schooling (and in particular the cat egory of „mental

deficiency‟) legitimated and reproduced „a given social order‟. While, in general, this

approach adopted a „macro level of analysis‟, Myers and Brown recognise the

permeability of the macro and micro levels at which structures and social practices

merge, citing Foucault‟s „micro-physics of power‟ which is embedded in „local

conditions and practices.‟ They critique this approach on the grounds that,

it rendered children and their families entirely passive. They appeared rarely and only

as problems – educational, medical or administrative – to be solved or as objects to be

disciplined.

38

In contrast, their third category of the historical study of „the national system of

schools to accommodate the newly identified deficient‟ focuses on the local context

and the micro-politics of mental deficiency, and the effects which policies and

practices had on individuals and families.

The first category maps on to other ways of describing historical approaches such as

the „modernist‟ approach in which development and change are located in „facts‟ such

as social and economic change, legislation, the ideas of reformers and developments

in scientific knowledge. The second can be interpreted as relating to a number of

different strands, including Marxist approaches. The third approach, which is

concerned with micro-politics and lived experience relates to „micro-history‟ and

37

Ibid, 73

38

Ibid, 73

owes much to oral history, anthropology and an exploration of local culture and

experience

39

.

Foucauldian analyses have strands which connect to both „social production‟ models

and to approaches rooted in explorations of power relations, cultures, discursive

practices and the management of difference.

40

The following sections focus on five

distinctive historical approaches to the history of disability and education: the

„modernist‟ tradition, the „functionalist‟, the „Marxist‟, the „Foucauldian‟ and „oral

history‟. Such broad categorisations should not be taken to mean that these represent

unitary concepts.

Disability, education and the writing of history

D.G.Pritchard‟s book Education and the Handicapped 1760-1960 is, as we saw

earlier, fundamentally modernist and teleological in approach, and might be

categorised as contributing to the „grand narrative‟ of an increasingly humane and

progressive world. Nevertheless, the detailed material it contains throws light on the

unpredictable nature of developments in education, as well as providing a coherent

account of their history. It also allows us to challenge later assumptions embedded in

education policy. A study of this text reveals, for example, that the idea that children

identified as having special educational needs should attend their local schools was

not an „invention‟ of the 1981 Education Act or the Warnock Report (1978)

41

on

which it was based, as is often assumed, but was included in the 1944 Education Act.

The Education Act of 1921 had provided education for disabled pupils only in special

schools or „certified special classes‟ but the 1944 Act instructed LEAs to

...provide for the education of pupils in whose case the disability is serious in

special schools appropriate for that category, but where that is impracticable, or

where the disability is not serious, the arrangement may provide for the giving

such education in any school maintained or assisted by the local education

authority.

42

39

Burke, P. What is Cultural History? Cambridge: Polity Press, 2004

40

See, for example, Copeland, I. The Making of the Backward Pupil in Education in

England. London: Woburn Press, 1999; Armstrong, F. Spaced Out: Policy, Difference

and the Challenge of Inclusive Education. London: Kluwer, 2003.

41

Committee of Enquiry into the Education of Handicapped Children and Young

People, Special Educational Needs (Warnock Report), London: HMSO, 1979)

42

Pritchard, op.cit., 209

Pritchard commented:

..unfortunately the wording of the Act allows authorities to evade their

responsibilities. The evasion, in so far as it exists, is not so much in the

provision of special schools, as in the lack of provision of special educational

facilities in the ordinary schools.

43

Rather than writing a purely descriptive account of the unfolding of legislation and

the construction of systems, Pritchard provides a commentary and critique of policy,

which challenges suggestions that history is concerned only with „the facts‟ or that the

subject matter should be treated in a clinical, deterministic way. In this sense,

although the „voice‟ of the author is obscured, the „analytical self‟ is not entirely

absent.

In Pritchard‟s book, little attention is paid to the lived experience of disabled children.

At the time such an approach would be seen as „subjective‟ and not, therefore, a

legitimate source of information. While it was recognised that history is complex and

uneven, the idea that there could be „multiple‟ histories, rather than one unfolding

narrative, was not considered. This mirrors the historical dominance of positivist

research at the time in which „facts‟, and observable, measurable data were privileged

over qualitative approaches to educational research. It is important, therefore, to avoid

critiquing the work of historians such as Pritchard from the vantage point of the more

recent intellectual context in which the values and insights and constructions of

historical knowledge are very different from those which framed historical work half

a century ago.

“Functionalist” History

The „functionalist‟ perspective

44

is based on the premise that disabled children have

particular needs as a result of their impairments which require specialist provision,

often including separate structures and the involvement of specialist professionals.

The response to impairment is understood in terms of the policies and adaptations put

in place which are seen as being necessitated by the impairments and difficulties of

43

Ibid, 209

44

Barnes, C., G. Mercer, G. and T. Shakespeare, T. Exploring Disability: A

Sociological Introduction. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999

the individual child. The roots of the „functionalist‟ approach are diverse, with

branches arising from the proliferation of medical and technical responses to

impairment and the emergence of powerful groups of professionals with their

particular interests in and perspectives on the needs and requirements of disabled

children – a process which began in the 18

th

century and gained momentum so that by

the early part of the 20

th

century diagnosis and treatment was a massive industry. This

can be seen as part of a wider project in the increasing management and control of the

population – linked to the growth of interest in eugenics and the humanitarian

concerns of social welfare.

The underpinning assumption of functionalist approaches is that an impairment is

something that is „wrong‟ with the child and which needs fixing or ameliorating;

efforts are made to introduce techniques, equipment and teaching strategies tailored to

the particular impairment to offset its effects. It is essentially a normalisation project

in which the „problem‟ to be addressed is seen as situated within the child. Since the

early part of the 20

th

century, and particularly since the 1960s, there has been a

massive growth in literature with a functionalist orientation intended to provide

solutions to or offset the detrimental effects of impairment – especially in relation to

what is described as „the autistic spectrum‟ – and related areas such as „Attention

Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder‟ and „Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties‟. Work

derived from the activities of the Peto Institute in Hungary is an example of a

functionalist approach to impairment, popular in the 1980s, which sought to teach

children with physical impairments to stand upright and walk, through a strict regime

of physical exercise and therapy. In general, such functional accounts of impairment

are based on a traditional „deficit‟ gaze which has “concentrated upon individual

limitations as the principle cause of the multiple difficulties experienced by disabled

people”

45

. Again, the experiences of children themselves are absent.

There are some very different examples of work which adopts a functionalist

perspective. The Open University textbook The Disabled Schoolchild

46

by Anderson,

first published in 1973, is concerned with the integration of „physically handicapped‟

45

Ibid

46

Anderson, E.M. The Disabled Schoolchild: A Study of Integration in primary

Schools. London: Methuen, 1973.

children in ordinary schools, the possible educational and social problems which may

arise, and how these may be managed. Although the book is conceptualised around

the notion of „handicap‟, the book was radical at the time in advocating „integration‟

in situations where the child can be „satisfactorily educated in an ordinary school‟.

Mental Subnormality

47

by Heaton-Ward, published in 1975, focuses on the diagnosis,

typology, grading, treatment and management of „mental subnormality‟ with an

emphasis on training rather than education. In contrast,

Cole‟s book, Apart or A Part? Integration and the Growth of Special Education

48

,

published in 1989, constructs the history of special education in terms of a

humanitarian response to individual deficits and impairments.

„Marxist‟ historical analysis and disability and education

Ideological struggle and power relations are largely missing from discussion in both

modernist and functionalist historical accounts.

In contrast „neo-Marxist‟ interpretations see the history of responses to disability, and

the development of special education, as part of a wider system of oppressive social

control informed by dominant ideologies and values (e.g. Tomlinson, 1982)

49

.

Finkelstein

50

was among the first to analyse the relationship between disability and

society from a historical materialist perspective. For Finkelstein – and other Marxists

- the problems created by impairment relate to questions of usefulness and

productivity and the ability to compete in the labour market and contribute to the

creation of surplus value. Just as production became industrialised, so did the

management and containment of disabled people in institutions. Scull‟s historical

study of the growth and role of asylums, Museums of Madness,

51

shows how their

development mirrored the growth and scale of capitalist modes and structures of

production with institutions for the old, insane, disabled or destitute similar in size

and assembly-line organisation to the vast factories which emerged during the same

47

Heaton-Ward, W.A. Mental Subnormality. Bristol: John Wright and Sons, 1975.

48

Cole, T. Apart or a Part? Integration and the growth of British Special Education

Milton Keynes: Open University Press,1989.

49

Tomlinson, S. A Sociology of Special Education. London: Routledge and Keegan

Paul, 1982.

50

Finkelstein, V. Attitudes and Disabled People. New York: World Rehabilitation

Fund, 1980.

51

Scull, A.T. Museums of Madness: The Social organization of Insanity in Nineteenth

Century England. London: Penguin Books, 1979.

period. Marxist approaches, provided by sociologists and historians, are well

represented in Disability Studies. In his analysis of the history of “integration” and

education, Oliver argues

The production of disability in one sense (...) is nothing more nor less than a set

of activities specifically geared towards producing a good – the category

disability – supported by a range of political actions which create the conditions

to allow these productive activities to take place and underpinned by a discourse

which gives legitimacy to the whole enterprise.

52

Historically, therefore, schools have been, and continue to be, part of the capitalist

„means of production‟ which (re)produce the social groups through processes of

categorisation and labelling, and the necessary labour force, to support the

continuation of the capitalist system. The placement of disabled children in segregated

schools, prepared them for a life of marginalisation and inactivity. In the broader

education system curricula, systems of assessment and pedagogy are all harnessed to

the reproductive task.

The influence of Foucault

There is a close relationship between traditional approaches to historical research and

writing on the history of education, „special educational needs‟ and disability, and the

embeddedness and persistent use of medicalised language and categories to refer to

particular impairments and to disabled people themselves.

There has recently been a strong critique in the literature of social practices which are

underpinned by categorisation, labelling and impairment-led language, from a range

of theoretical or value-based positions. In particular, the history of disability has been

critically examined through various Foucauldian analyses in which categorisation and

the „language of special needs‟ are seen as conduits for the exercise of power which

merge the „pastoral‟ with the „disciplinary‟

53

. Others have developed a critique of

labelling as power embedded in professional knowledge and discourses

54

or have

drawn on Foucault‟s concept of “traditional” and “effective” history, in challenging

52

Oliver, M. Understanding Disability from Theory to Practice. London: Macmillan

Press, 1996. 127

53

Peim, N. “The history of the present: towards a contemporary phenomenology of

the school.” History of Education, 30 no. 2 (2001): 177-90

54

Corbett, J. Bad Mouthing. London: Falmer Press, 1996.

traditional, linear accounts of educational responses to disability and learning

difficulty.

55

Drawing on narrative documentary material, Derrick Armstrong has explored the

methodological implications for historians of accepting Foucault‟s analysis of

knowledge as „social practice‟ and the „de-centring of the individual as a „historical

agent‟

56

He argues:

When considering the history of education it is important that we ask the

question: „Whose history is being talked about?‟ If we ask „whose history?‟ we

start to realise that history is not simply a set of facts about the world but is

rather a set of contested perspectives, Secondly, it becomes apparent that some

of those perspectives or voices are left out of official or dominant

representations of the study altogether.

Questions concerning power and voice have become increasingly central in the way

the histories of marginalised groups are conceptualised

Oral history, autobiography and the question of „voice‟

The politicisation of impairment, the increasing strength of the Disability movement,

the radicalising effects of the implications of the Social Model, and the influence of

theorisations and debates arising out of the women‟s movement, have revealed

different perspectives and new sociological questions about disability, framed by

Carol Thomas, for example, as: “How can this social phenomenon be theorized? What

is its social history?”

57

Such questions have opened up debate, raising, in particular,

questions about the role of the experiential in theorising impairment and disability,

and the championing of „emancipatory research‟ in which the experiences and voices

of disabled people, and children in particular, were drawn into the centre. Much of

the work which includes oral accounts of the experiences of disabled children has not

55

Copeland, I. The Making of the Backward Pupil in Education in England. London:

Woburn Press, 1999; Armstrong, F. “The historical development of special education:

humanitarian rationality or „wild profusion of entangled events‟?” History of

Education, 31, no 5 (2002) 437-456

56

Armstrong, D. Experience of Special Education: Re-evaluating policy and practice

through life stories. London: RoutledgeFalmer, 2003: 23

57

Thomas, C. “Disability Theory: Key Ideas, Issues and Thinkers.” In Disability

Studies Today edited by In Barnes, C., M.Oliver and L.Barton. Cambridge: Polity

Press, 2002. 38-57.

been written by „mainstream‟ historians

58

. For example, Wilmot and Saul, family and

„local‟ historians, have carried out work on the history of Open-Air schools in

Birmingham

59

and draw extensively on reports and other archive material, much of

which is based on narrative documentary evidence of „insiders‟. In his work on self-

advocacy, Goodley

60

, a Disability theorist, draws extensively on the narrative

documentary accounts of people labelled as having learning difficulties, to explore the

impact of self-advocacy. Murray and Penman

61

, Disability activists and parents of

disabled children, have gathered together narrative accounts of the experiences of

families „living with and learning about‟ impairment which includes narratives of the

experience of education.

Oral history is an approach associated with local and anthropological historical

research, and nurtured the kind of cultural history which flourished in the History

Workshops, founded by Raphael Samuel, in the 1960s in which „history‟ was made

„from below‟. There are close links here with the development of what was referred to

as a “new genre” – that of „micro-history‟ which Peter Burke describes as offering „an

attractive alternative to the telescope, allowing concrete individual or local experience

to re-enter history‟. Micro-history

...was a response to a growing disillusionment with the so-called „grand

narrative‟ of progress‟ (which) „...passed over the achievements and

contributions of many other cultures, not to mention (the) social groups in the

West...

62

Micro-history allows in personal accounts as valued material through which to

understand social relationships and social change.

The relatively recent interest in the „voices‟ of disabled people in disability research

and in the construction of histories of the experiences of disabled people, is therefore

58

See, for example, Booth, T. and Booth, W. Growing up with parents who have

learning difficulties. London: Routledge, 1998, and Goodley, D. Self-advocacy in the

Lives of People with Learning Difficulties. Buckingham: Open University Press,

2000.

59

Wilmot, F. and P.Saul. A Breath of Fresh Air: Birminghams‟s Open-Air Schools

1911-1970. Chichester: Phillimore, 1998.

60

Goodley, Ibid

61

Murray, P. and J.Penman. Telling Our Own Stories: Reflection on family life in a

disabling world. Sheffield: Parents With Attitude, 2000.

62

Burke, P. What is Cultural History? Cambridge: Polity Press, 2004. 43-44

both part of a wider tradition in historical and cultural studies, and part of a

contemporary movement in historical research which links directly to recent

developments in Disability studies and activism. The contribution from feminists

working in the field of disability studies has been particularly important in stressing

the importance of the experiential in analysing and understanding social and historical

processes

63

. The accounts of individuals are seen as making a major contribution in

terms of understanding the relationship between the individual experience of

impairment and the social conditions which create disabling barriers.

Conclusion

Carol Thomas, a researcher, feminist, and activist, who has developed a „social

narrative‟ approach to exploring issues of disability, gender and power, reminds us of

the importance of developing counter-narratives, and for others to take notice of them.

Perhaps the key point is that without the counter-narratives of others who

challenge social „norms‟ we, as isolated individuals, are trapped within the

story-lines of the prevailing narratives. If we do re-write out own identities then

we strengthen the counter-narrative, and the dominant and oppressive narratives

begin to crumble.

64

These counter-narratives represent a struggle against hegemonic accounts of the

history of education and disabled people which focus on the legislative and technical

responses to impairment. In some important respects the approaches to historical

enquiry relating to disability and education have reflected changes in social values,

policy and practices. The different kinds of historical work which has been carried out

can be linked to differences in the way the identity and interests of disabled children

have been conceptualised. It is particularly significant that historical work on

education has routinely ignored disability and special education systems, or treated

them as of minor, peripheral importance. History works, therefore, in hegemonic

63

For example, Morris, J. Encounters with Strangers: Feminism and Disability.

London: The Women‟s Press, 1996.

64

Thomas, C. „Narrative Identity in the disabled self‟ in Disability Discourse, edited

by Corker, M and S.French. Buckingham: Open University Press, 1999. 55

ways, implicitly sustaining the exclusion of disabled people, but history is also a „site

of contestation and conflict‟

65

which reflects wider struggles in the social world.

In reflecting on the different approaches adopted in historical research in the field of

education and disability, the absence of the experiential and narrative documentary

evidence

66

in mainstream historical accounts is evident. Existing work undertaken in

other disciplines such as Disability studies and critical policy studies, and less

orthodox historical research such as narrative and „insider perspective‟ research,

provide fresh staring points for future research in the history of disability and

education. There is an urgent need to adopt a cross-disciplinary approach to research

which both complements and challenges dominant historical accounts, many of which

serve to legitimate the exclusion of the historical and analytical knowledge of disabled

people.

The author wishes to acknowledge the detailed and helpful comments on earlier

drafts of this paper by reviewers and members of the editorial board of History of

Education

.

65

Popkewitz, T. B.M. Franklin and M.A.Pereyra (eds) Cultural History and

Education. London: RoutledgeFalmer, 2001. 11

66

Goodley, Ibid

... Μεξηθέο απφ ηηο βαζηθέο λνκνζεηηθέο αιιαγέο γηα ηελ αλάπηπμε ηεο εηδηθήο αγσγήο ζηελ Αγγιία είλαη νη εθπαηδεπηηθνί λφκνη ηνπ: Σέηνηεο λνκνζεηηθέο πξνζπάζεηεο σζηφζν ιέλε ειάρηζηα γηα ηα επξχηεξα θνηλσληθά πιαίζηα κέζα ζηα νπνία εκθαλίζηεθαλ θαη ηίπνηα γηα ηελ εκπεηξία ησλ παηδηψλ κε εηδηθέο αλάγθεο (Armstrong: 2007). ...

... Δληνχηνηο, ε πξψηε ελδηαθέξζεθε γηα ηελ παξνρή ηεο εθπαίδεπζεο πνπ ζα πξνεηνίκαδε ηα παηδηά γηα ηνπο κειινληηθνχο ξφινπο ηνπο ζηελ θνηλσλία, νη νπνίνη θαζνξίζηεθαλ ζε κεγάιν κέξνο απφ ηελ ηάμε θαη ηηο ππάξρνπζεο αληηιήςεηο γηα ηελ ηθαλφηεηα. Οη Δθπαηδεπηηθνί Νφκνη ηνπ 1944, ε Δθζεζε Newsom, ε αλάπηπμε ηεο εθπαίδεπζεο γεληθήο κφξθσζεο θαη ε εθαξκνγή ηνπ λφκνπ ηνπ 1970 ήηαλ νη πξφδξνκνη γηα ηελ έληαμε ησλ παηδηψλ κε εηδηθέο αλάγθεο ζηα γεληθά ζρνιεία (Armstrong: 2007).  Μεηαμχ '70 θαη '80, ε αχμεζε ησλ νκάδσλ πίεζεο γνλέσλ, ε εκθάληζε κηαο "θξηηηθήο ινγνηερλίαο" ζηελ θνηλσληνινγία ηεο εθπαίδεπζεο πνπ απεηθφληζαλ ηελ θνηλσληθή αιιαγή ππέξ ησλ αζηηθψλ δηθαησκάησλ, νη πνιηηηθέο πξνζπάζεηεο γηα ηελ ηαπηφηεηα θαη ηελ απηφ-πξαγκαηνπνίεζε, νδήγεζαλ ζηελ επαλαμηνιφγεζε ηεο δηαρσξηζκέλεο εηδηθήο εθπαίδεπζεο. ...

Δήμητρα Κοκκινάκη

Αριάδνη Κοκκινάκη

p align="JUSTIFY"> Σκοπός της εργασίας είναι η παρουσίαση της εξέλιξης της νομοθεσίας και της ιστορίας της ειδικής αγωγής στην Αγγλία και στην Ελλάδα. Ιδιαίτερη έμφαση δίνεται στο νομοθετικό πλαίσιο και στις προσπάθειες που έχουν καταβληθεί για τη θεσμοθέτηση της ειδικής αγωγής στην Αγγλία, αλλά κυρίως στη χώρα μας. Στην Αγγλία οι βασικότερες νομοθετικές προσπάθειες είναι: οι νόμοι του 1870,1876 και 1880, η έκθεση Egerton το 1889, ο νόμος του 1970, η έκθεση Warnock (1978), οι Νόμοι του 1981, 1995 και 2001. Στην Ελλάδα θεσπίστηκαν μέτρα από τις κυβερνήσεις Καποδίστρια και Όθωνα, ενώ η πρώτη σημαντική προσπάθεια ήταν το 1913 καθώς και η μεταρρύθμιση του 1929. Τη δεκαετία 1960-70, δεν παρατηρούνται αξιοσημείωτες αλλαγές. Το διάστημα 1970-1980 σημειώνεται έντονη κινητικότητα. Μεγάλη πρόοδος όμως παρατηρείται την περίοδο 1984-89. Η ειδική αγωγή στην Αγγλία πέρασε από την πλήρη απόρριψη, τη φιλανθρωπική απομόνωση και την εκπαίδευση σε ιδρύματα, στη σημερινή εποχή αναγνώρισης και σεβασμού της διαφορετικότητας, διεκδίκησης για κοινωνική συμμετοχή και συνεκπαίδευση. Και παρόλο που η ειδική αγωγή εξελίσσεται εμφανώς καθυστερημένα στη χώρα μας σε σχέση με την Αγγλία, τα τελευταία χρόνια έχουν σημειωθεί αρκετές προσπάθειες ανάπτυξης του κλάδου. </p

... This view perpetuates the concept of the disabled child as incapable and can be reflected in the attitudes that professionals display, which in turn restricts the children's access to opportunities to engage in participatory activities (Franklin, 2013). As a result, instead of communicating directly with children, the voice of the disabled child is often represented by professionals or the children's parents (Armstrong, 2007). ...

In this paper we discuss the need to find suitable methods for eliciting the voices of children with communication, speech and language needs in order to gain insights into their experiences of school, especially in the context of renewed legal requirements to involve children in decisions about their education. A critical review of existing methods for eliciting and facilitating communication from children with communication needs is presented , and an analysis of those approaches is offered. From this analysis we propose a framework for the characteristics needed in any new tool developed for this purpose.

... In terms of the approach adopted here the study is premised on the social model of disability (Chapter 2, Section, 1). Children are understood as ‗disabled' in the sense that they are prevented by society from achieving their potential rather than being defined only by their special needs (Armstrong, 2007;Corbett, 1996;Oliver, 1996). Disabled here does not mean ‗less able'. ...

Antigoni Stylianou

In a discernibly developed world, where the subject of disability and equal rights for disabled children is strongly discussed, it is expected that inclusive practices and service provision should be developed in smaller societies as well. There is evidence that mothers, and mothers of disabled children in particular, are the main care providers to their children. Lack of evidence for this however, in the context of Cyprus, was the main point of departure for this research. By focusing on mothers with disabled children in Cyprus, this study aimed to gain an understanding of mothers’ experiences and their perspectives on raising disabled children. An examination of the Cyprus context, its history and relation to disability, have been analysed in an attempt to contextualise the analysis of mothers’ accounts. Twenty-five mothers shared their personal experiences of their journeys with their disabled children. Data were collected via semi-structured interviews with mothers whose children ranged from the ages of six to twenty-two years. Mothers described their experiences and early feelings, from the time that their children were born, to the time that the mothers became aware of the disability. Mothers were asked to describe the support that they received ‘formally’, with regards to state support and other public services, as well as the ‘informal support’ received from family members and friends. In addition the study aimed to establish an understanding of the experiences of stigma that the mothers encountered, and the ways used to manage and cope with stigma. Data were analysed through thematic analysis. The study shows that mothers went through different stages of grief associated with their journeys with their children. Shock, disappointment and lack of trust in doctors and other professionals were the main feelings that characterised the different stages of their journeys. In terms of support, the results highlighted differences between the formal and informal support that they received. Mothers were much less satisfied with formal than informal support. All the mothers experienced stigma by ‘courtesy’ of having a child with a disability. The study concludes that in Cyprus there is still a huge gap between policy and practice.

... The perceptions of parents and teachers in the UK with regard to a subgroup of students with special educational needs that also displayed challenging behavior was explored by Broomhead (2013), who found that beliefs triggered behaviors in all students and educators. This is to be expected since changes in special education will only come about when the perceptions of services for children with disabilities change from one of a national economic drain on resources signaling economic and social dependency, to one of services which are seen as a common social good (Armstrong, 2007). It was noted by Broomhead that a lot of evidence had been collected over the years about the stigma attached to those with disabilities and special educational needs in the UK. ...

Thomas G Ryan

Latvia regained its independence in 1991 and has been slowly transforming the education system to meet the standards of the European Union (EU) and the Western world. Since regaining independence Latvia has started to integrate children with special education needs into regular schools and society; yet the process is quite restrained and measured, causing many to suggest that there must be a way and means to accelerate this process. If only Latvians could access and use practices found (Alberta) Canada or another inclusive country (Finland), that has successfully integrated students and adults with disabilities into school and society, to diminish Latvian problems such as life long dependency, poverty and social exclusion that adds to an already existing stigma of intellectual disability according to the European Union Monitoring and Advocacy Program (EUMAP, 2005). Stigma is the one issue that keeps surfacing as the key challenge for people with special needs in Latvia (Fine-Davis & Faas, 2014). Latvian society at present has minimal exposure and experience with children and adults with special needs, resulting in unawareness, avoidance, and a general misunderstanding of this population.

... Writing about the evolution of terms from "integration" to "inclusive education," Thomazet (2009) acknowledges that the proponents of the latter usage emphasize on attributing learning difficulties experienced by individual learners to the school and wider community and not to the factors within the individual person; thereby making such institutions more responsible for reorganizing the learning environment to suit all learners. This pragmatic shift signifies our thinking about disability from "medical" to "social" perspectives (Haegele & Hodge, 2016) as championed by disabled people's struggle for their rights in the western world (Armstrong, 2007;Oliver, 2013). Tarkala and Aunio (2005) define inclusive education as a flexible education approach in which all kinds of children have the opportunity to participate in general education programs. ...

Mwajabu K. Possi

Joseph Reginard Milinga

Special education was introduced in Tanzania Mainland in 1950 by the Church Missionary Society. Despite its long history in the country, not many policies have clearly stipulated the need for special and inclusive education. This paper succinctly and systematically evaluates various educational reforms and policies in Tanzania, and points out some successes and embedded challenges in the development of special needs and inclusive education in Tanzania. To analyze clearly the current situation of special and inclusive education in the country, the Peter’s model and cases of some identified schools for exceptional students are used. The analysis has indicated an evolution from special to integrated and later on to inclusive education, which has led to an apparent increase in the number of schools and subsequent relatively higher enrollment figures for children with special needs. Despite this evolution, Tanzania has a long way to go, when compared to other countries in effectively achieving the provision of education to exceptional individuals. Finally, towards a new era of special and inclusive education in Tanzania, various recommendations are offered.

... In the USA the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EAHCA Public Law (PL) 94-142) (United States Congress 1975) was similarly influential in drawing attention to the needs of children who had previously been marginalised within the education system. Both of these significant pieces of legislation would not have been proposed had 8 it not been for the persistence of parents who acted as advocates for their children and campaigned vigorously for their right to receive an education (Yell, Rogers and Lodge Rogers 1998;Armstrong 2007). Similar patterns of change can be recorded during a corresponding time period in many other parts of Europe (Winzer 1993) and Australia (Slee 2001). ...

Richard Rose

The challenge of providing education that is inclusive and seen as equitable for all children is one that has exercised policy makers and education professionals in most countries throughout the late twentieth and early twenty first centuries (Thomas 2013; Loreman, Forlin, Chambers, Sharma and Deppeler 2014). International agreements such as the Jomtien Declaration (UNESCO 1990), and the Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on Special Needs Education (UNESCO 1994) were instrumental in promoting debate about the rights of children who were denied access to an appropriate schooling and in some instances had no opportunity to obtain any formal education. The Education for All Goals (UNESCO 2000) which were used to prioritise the development of universal primary education, and more recently the United Nations Sustainable Education Goals (UNESCO 2015) which reiterated a commitment to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all” (Goal 4) have increased the focus upon developing inclusive education. This has encouraged governments around the world to re-examine the ways in which they provide schooling for their children and young people. With such a plethora of initiatives, agreements and advice, it is only to be expected that most national administrations have felt it necessary to respond and to demonstrate that they are taking action towards improving educational opportunities for all. However, the relationship between policy and practice is complex and in some instances the development of legislation has failed to provide increased equity in the manner that was intended. This chapter considers two distinctly different routes towards achieving inclusive education and discusses those factors that have either supported or inhibited success. In drawing upon examples from current developments in India, it additionally proposes that researchers who conduct investigations in international contexts should invest time in understanding underlying policy and cultural and historical factors that may impact upon the ways in which we interpret meaning from data.

Gary Mcculloch

This article reviews the historiography as it has developed in Britain over the past sixty years in the history of education. This encompasses three key phases. From 1960 until about 1975 it was a field that was based mainly in key texts while new journals and societies began to emerge. From 1975 to the end of the century as it lost its mass market in teacher education, general texts in the history of education declined while specialised journals research grew in importance. In the early decades of the twenty-first century, specialisation continued in an increasingly diversified research field with a growing emphasis on theory, methodology, comparative and transnational approaches, and engagement with the social sciences. Initially quite insular and tending to focus on local and national concerns, it became prominent in international activities and in contributing to research with international, comparative and transnational vistas. Overall, the map of the history of education in Britain has changed both in form and in content, as well as in the audience towards which it was principally directed.

Francesca Peruzzo

This paper aims to present an analytical tool called Model of Becoming Aware, to explore the production of the subjectivities of disabled students and new forms of exclusions during the enactment of disability policies in the Italian higher education context. It deploys Foucault’s governmentality studies to frame the changing historical conditions from a welfarist to neoliberal governance, of the university and it draws upon qualitative data collected in an Italian university. The Model is the product of situational analysis of the enactment of inclusive policies and explores the mobilisation of authority, resources, practices, subjects, opportunities and knowledge by two technologies of power – autonomy and sensitivity. Findings illustrate how medical and economic truths in times of austerity are producing new forms of performative neoliberal subjectivities in higher education while subordinating forms of subjection based on expensive welfarist provisions. Through the Model of Becoming Aware, the article aims to supply a contingent tool to analyse current ableist and exclusionary practices in the enactment of disability higher education policies, providing an evidence-based space to rethink policies to support disabled students educational access and attainment in higher education.

Valentina Migliarini

This paper explores how inclusive education in the Italian context has shifted from the Marxist model based on the solidarity of Integrazione Scolastica (see D’Alessio, 2011) to a neoliberal approach which targets Black migrant and forced-migrant children. The introduction of Renzi’s policy reform, Buona Scuola, marked this shift towards neoliberal inclusion, and the current far-right government, led by Salvini, adds a populist character to it, evident in his mantra of “helping them back home”. Drawing from Butler’s (1997) notions of subjectivation and referring to Tomlinson’s (1982) concept of benevolent humanitarianism, the paper analyzes how Italian educators conceptualize the inclusion of migrants and refugees through neoliberal fantasies. However, the space of neoliberal inclusion is ableist, racist, and exclusionary. Ultimately, the paper advances the intersectional approach of Disability Critical Race Theory (DisCrit) to (re)frame educational and social inclusion in Italy and to refute a neoliberal model that perpetuates racial disparities (Annamma, Connor, Ferri, 2013; 2016).

Felicity Armstrong

This is an extremely important book containing a wealth of ideas and insights and raising important questions for discussion and further exploration. In a lucid and cogently argued analysis, the author both challenges dominant ideas and interp- tations and provides some alternative innovatory perspectives. These include, the making and meaning of policy; the varied and complex ways in which inclusion and exclusion can be understood; the nature and function of categorisation, labelling and discursive practices within official discourse and procedures and the position and relationship between space, place and identities in relation to the experience of marginalized people including disabled children and young people. Drawing on concepts and insights from social and cultural geography Armstrong is able to seriously examine and discuss daily activities within institutional and social settings in England and France from several different angles. In sensitive, thoughtful and imaginative ways the micro-politics of social settings and encounters are explored through a process of deconstruction and reconstruction. Subtle, overt and contradictory features of interactions are carefully identified and critically discussed. This covers how meanings, decisions and outcomes of such encounters are developed, challenged and changed. Both in relation to discussions of the history of special education and her cri- cal self-reflections on the research process, the author challenges homogeneous conceptions and sanitized accounts of what, she argues, is an essentially messy process. It is the unevenness, discontinuities and contradictions of social conditions and relations that are depicted in insightful and disturbing ways.

Derrick Armstrong

Discussion about educational provision for children with learning difficulties has largely ignored the voices of those for whom that provision is intended. Experiences of Special Education argues that these 'insider perspectives' are of central importance for a fuller understanding of special educational needs policy. Bringing a unique focus to the subject of special needs education, Derrick Armstrong reassesses the history of special educational policy through the life-stories of those who have first-hand experience. These stories contest official policy discourses and inform an understanding of the competing political and professional debates in this area, allowing the reader to: Investigate the social and historical contexts of special educational needs policy. Challenge traditional notions of policy research. Explore alternative policy discourses informed by the voices of the excluded. This thought-provoking book is based on detailed case-study analysis of the experiences of over thirty adults who attended special institutions/schools between 1994 and the present. It provides a fresh perspective on current discussions of special educational provisions for teachers, student teachers, policy makers and academics, involved in special education.

Jane Read

Jan Walmsley

In the light of continuing controversy over the role of special schools in England, this paper considers the development of special education through examination of evidence from two different geographical areas. Particular reference is made to uncovering the perspectives of those who were subject to the policies – children and their families – drawing on documentary sources, oral history and biographies. The authors highlight how the relative optimism accompanying the opening of special schools, evident in London in the 1890s, gave way to punishment or neglect in the early 20th century.

Patricia Potts

Many people with mental handicaps live in hospitals as if they were sick and their difficulties were the result of disease. Doctors, then, have a great deal of power to direct their lives, especially if an impairment is apparent from birth. Growing demands for the re-integration of people with disabilities into the community, into ordinary educational provisions and into more open employment, reflect a critical questioning of this medical model of handicap. Yet the understanding of social problems in pathological terms is by no means restricted to medical practitioners: medical ideas are widespread in education. John Quicke, an educational psychologist, has recently canvassed the views of a large number of local authority psychologists and found that: The notion of handicap and its physical and biological connotations that emerged as a dominant concept in the rationale of special education made it possible to conceive of those children with special needs as a relatively fixed group of individual 'bodies'... Educational difficulties were therefore attached to a separate group of children objectively different from the rest [1]. Two aspects of this view strike me particularly: first, that educational difficulties are seen as recognisable symptoms which characterise the 'sufferers' in a sealed compartment and second, that children with special needs are mindless. The medical model of handicap becomes a vehicle to fill with personal values, popular prejudices and professional vested interests, passengers whose season-tickets have still not expired. The influence of doctors in special education can be illuminated by tracing their early involvement in state-funded provisions for children with physical and mental impairments. Doctors defined and classified disabilities; their categories became the non-educational basis for educational legislation and provision; they assessed the children referred for separate schooling; they inspected the special schools; they frequently dictated the curriculum, time-table and teaching methods, and they drafted educational policy documents as School Medical Officers within the Board of Education.

Richard J. Altenbaugh

Viewing disabled people as historical actors, this essay ponders emerging disability historiography, distilling three key characteristics-the norm, prejudice and human agency-and applies them to specific cases related to the polio phenomenon of the twentieth century, focusing on the closely related experiences of childhood, families and schooling.

Pamela Dale

Recent comments by Baroness Warnock have reignited controversy over the relative merits of policies designed to promote inclusion and address special educational needs. These debates, conducted mainly between practitioners and parents, do not encourage input from historians but can usefully contextualize earlier models of service delivery. This paper concentrates on the interwar period when provision for children, whom we would now understand to have a moderate to severe learning disability, was shaped by the requirements of the 1913 Mental Deficiency Act. Existing studies that have examined the implementation of this legislation have tended to concentrate on the management of long-stay institutions. This has led to a focus on medical care and the social control of adolescents and adults. Education has featured in these accounts but often in a fairly limited way, with more emphasis on school failure leading to admission than the educational potential of either the mental deficiency institution or its inmates. This paper seeks to redress the balance by offering a brief survey of the way education served as a way in, through and out of one of the largest specialist institutions in the South West of England before 1948.

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Disability and Education: Student Experiences

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Disability and Education: Student Experiences

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Higher education and disability: Exploring student experiences

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(2016). Higher education and disability: Exploring student experiences. Cogent Education: Vol. 3, No. 1, 1256142.

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£33.9 billion more for the NHS

We're making sure the NHS has the resources it needs so that it can provide everyone with the best possible care.

The NHS budget will go up by £33.9 billion by 2023-24. That's the biggest cash boost in its history.

And we're making sure that money is already getting to the frontline with £6.2 billion more this year.

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Upgrading 20 hospitals and building 40 new ones

On top of more money for the NHS every year, we're investing in hospitals so that our brilliant doctors and nurses have the facilities they need to give patients the best possible care.

We're providing £850 million for 20 hospital upgrades, £2.7 billion for the first six new hospitals, and seed funding so that work on 34 more can make progress.

And 78 hospital trusts will receive state-of-the-art MRI, CT and mammography screening machines, so cancer can be detected more quickly to boost survival rates.

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Making sure the NHS has the staff it needs

Under the Conservatives, there are over 21,000 more doctors and almost 17,000 more nurses on our wards.

Over 1 million NHS staff - nurses, midwives and cleaners - are getting a well-deserved pay rise of at least 6.5% per cent and doctors will also see their pay increase.

We're also opening five new medical schools to make sure we can plan for the future with confidence as we train the next generation of NHS staff here at home.

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Investing in the people at the heart of our NHS

50,000 more nurses, with students receiving a £5,000-£8,000 annual maintenance grant every year during their course to help with their cost of living - and they won't have to pay it back.

Everyone will receive at least £5,000 with further funding in regions or disciplines that are struggling to recruit - such as mental health - and help with their childcare costs.

We will improve staff morale with more funding for professional training and more supportive hospital management.

6,000 more doctors in general practice and 6,000 more primary care professionals, such as physiotherapists and pharmacists. This is on top of the 7,500 extra nurse associates and 20,000 primary care professionals that we have already announced.

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50 million extra GP surgery appointments

Our new funding will deliver 50 million extra general practice appointments a year, an increase of over 15 per cent. That means that if you need an appointment, waiting times will be shorter and you'll get the service you deserve.

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The NHS Visa

Our NHS People Plan will ensure that we train and employ tens of thousands more NHS professionals here in the UK. But we also want to make sure that those from overseas who want to work in and support our NHS are encouraged to do so.

That is why overseas qualified doctors, nurses and allied health professionals with a job offer from the NHS, who have been trained to a recognised standard, and who have good working English, will be offered fast-track entry, reduced visa fees and dedicated support to come to the UK with their families.

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We're making sure the NHS has the resources it needs so that it can provide everyone with the best possible care. The NHS budget will go up by £33.9 billion by 2023-24. That's the biggest cash boost in its history. And we're making sure that money is already getting to the frontline with £6.2 billion more this year.

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Medical negligence is caused when a medical professional fails to perform their role to a reasonable standard. But what happens when that professional's actions fall so far below the standard that a death was the only foreseeable outcome?
This is a complex area of medical law, and that is why it is important to discuss it with a specialist solicitor if you think you might have a claim.

In this post, our solicitors look at the key points that differentiate simple medical negligence from gross negligence manslaughter, and talk about the legal steps involved in a claim for gross negligence manslaughter.

What is Gross Negligence Manslaughter?

Gross negligence manslaughter is a crime that is committed when someone in an official position commits an unlawful act that they should have been able to see would result in the death of another.

People this could include are:

Medical professionals such as doctors or nurses

An employee in a business

Someone supervising people who are in the custody of the state (in prison)

It has to be proved they ignored a duty of care towards the person who was killed.

How is Gross Negligence proven?

The tests to determine whether gross negligence manslaughter caused a death are like those used to tell whether medical negligence took place, but because it is such a serious crime, there are additional elements to the test:
Breach of Duty
Did the person who has been accused have a duty of care towards the person who was killed? The jury will look at what a reasonably competent person doing the same job would do in an identical situation.
Causation
What caused the death? It needs to be proven that the actions of the person accused led to the death. A claim where this can't be done wouldn't be successful.

To read more about the legal tests for medical negligence, see our article on " What is Causation in Medical Negligence? "
Grossness
The key difference between medical negligence and gross negligence is that the breach of duty must have gone beyond "normal" negligence, and become "gross", which is another way of saying it was criminal.
An Obvious Risk of Death
The final element is that during the time that the breach of duty happened, it must have been obvious to the person who has been accused that there was a reasonable chance it would end in someone else's death. They do not necessarily need to have known who it would kill, however. An example would be someone operating dangerous machinery on a building site - they should know that if proper safety guidelines aren't followed, they could cause a death, but they may not know who exactly would die.

Examples of Gross Negligence Manslaughter Medical Cases

R v Adomako - the definition of Gross Negligence Manslaughter

This definition of what constitutes gross negligence manslaughter was created as the result of an unsuccessful appeal regarding the case of R v Adomako. The defendant in that case was an anaesthetist who failed to notice that an oxygen pipe had been disconnected from their patient's ventilator for six minutes, resulting in the death of their patient and a conviction for manslaughter.

Because a guilty verdict could result in a prison sentence, a gross negligence manslaughter claim uses a more rigorous standard of "proving beyond reasonable doubt" that the four elements which make up the test have been met.

Early cases of gross negligence manslaughter used an old law that had been repealed by the time of R v Adomako, which is why the House of Lords decided to implement more rigorous test.

The Case of Dr Hadiza Bawa-Garba

A recent case of gross negligence manslaughter which was featured in the press is that of Dr Hadiza Bawa-Garba. The case was controversial because many people believe that Dr Bawa-Garba was herself a victim of systemic failures within the NHS, and it was these failures that led to the death of her patient, a six-year-old boy named Jack Adcock.

Dr Bawa-Garba had recently returned from her maternity leave when she was made responsible for Jack's care. He was having trouble breathing, amongst other symptoms, and with pre-diagosed heart problems this was a concern. There was no senior consultant available, and Dr Bawa-Garba had to cover the work of two other doctors due to gaps in the rota. The consultant who should have been on call had not realised, and so was off-site for most of the day.

A cascade of errors led to Jack's death - Dr Bawa-Garba had not told his mother to stop administering his heart medication, and he was moved to the room which a different patient under a Do Not Resuscitate Order had that day been moved from without Dr Bawa-Garba's knowledge. When Jack suffered a cardiac arrest Dr Bawa-Garba initially believed him to be the other patient, and stopped the resuscitation attempt. By the time it was restarted it was too late, and Jack passed away.

Making a Claim for Gross Negligence Manslaughter

If you feel that gross negligence manslaughter happened to a loved one while they were receiving medical treatment, the best thing you could do is speak to an expert medical negligence solicitor. A good solicitor will be able to help you decide if gross negligence manslaughter was involved, and if it was, you will then need to report that to the police.

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What is Gross Negligence Manslaughter and How Can You Make a Claim? - Enable Law

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Medical negligence is caused when a medical professional fails to perform their role to a reasonable standard. But what happens when that professional's actions fall so far below the standard that a death was the only foreseeable outcome?

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Illinois Injury and Mass Tort Lawyer Blog

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In many cases, it is difficult to prevail in a lawsuit against the government. This is because federal, state, and local governments are all entitled to a certain level of immunity. Generally speaking, this means that as long as a government employee is acting within the scope of his or her employment when an injury to another person occurs, the government is not liable, even if the employee acted negligently, or without reasonable care. In Illinois, this is called qualified immunity.

While qualified immunity shields governments from having to compensate many injured parties, the immunity enjoyed by governments does not protect against liability in every single case. In some cases, if a government employee's actions are particularly egregious, the government may be liable for damages. In these situations, an injured party must prove that the government acted with utter indifference or a conscious disregard for the health and safety of others or their property. In Illinois, this may also be referred to as gross negligence, or willful and wanton conduct.

Illinois, like many other states, provides qualified immunity to its government employees so that they may carry out their jobs without fear of being sued. However, as we have seen in cases involving police misconduct, sometimes this immunity backfires, and state employees act as though they are above the law entirely.

According to one news source, recent events in Flint, Michigan, may also rise to this level. In 2011, the governor of Michigan appointed "emergency managers" to take over and run the city, due to its financial woes. In 2014, those managers decided to make the Flint River the city's new source of drinking water in order to save money. Immediately, residents began noticing changes in their water, and they responded vocally. The state government downplayed these complaints, despite the river's reputation as highly polluted and early indications that the lead level in the water had increased.

In September 2015, a study confirmed residents' fears. The amount of lead in the city's drinking water had increased so much that Flint's children were at a significantly higher risk of lead poisoning. On top of this, there have been allegations that the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality knew of the unsafe lead levels in the water but tried to conceal the risks from the public. The city has since switched back to its original water supply, but not before residents have reported a host of illnesses, as well as deaths, that they believe are directly attributable to the lead in the water.

As result of these illnesses, a lawsuit has been filed against 14 state officials, including the governor of Michigan, in U.S. District Court in Detroit. The suit is seeking an order that certifies the case as a class action. In a class action lawsuit, an individual or individuals sue on behalf of other injured parties who have similar injuries that have been caused by the same source. It is designed to consolidate the large number of lawsuits that might be filed against the same defendant for related personal injury claims.
Have You Been Injured Because of the Actions of a Government Employee?
Sometimes high level government employees come to believe they are above the law. They believe that since they are charged with enforcing the law, it does not apply to them. With the right lawyers, this is not the case. The lawyers at Moll Law Group have the experience, courage, and wherewithal to take on the government when its employees have abused their discretion. Our attorneys are experienced and available to proceed with cases against the government, individually and by class action litigation, no matter how complex the case. For a free consultation, call Moll Law Group at (312) 462-1700.
See More Posts:
Common Carriers Must Take Reasonable Care or Face Liability, Illinois Injury Lawyer Blog, January 12, 2016.

State-Owned Railway Is Protected by Sovereign Immunity, Supreme Court Decides, Illinois Injury Lawyer Blog, January 9, 2016.

Illinois Protects Police with Partial Immunity in Police Misconduct Cases, Illinois Injury Lawyer Blog, January 16, 2016.

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Governments May Be Liable in Cases of Gross Negligence

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In many cases, it is difficult to prevail in a lawsuit against the government. This is because federal, state, and local governments are all entitled to a certain level of immunity.

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Labour and Conservative Manifestos Compared

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Labour and Conservative Manifestos Compared

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Wednesday's Budget - which saw tax and spending rise to record levels - represents a major shift in Tory philosophy, a minister has claimed.

The party has traditionally tried to cut taxes and keep spending down.

Treasury Secretary Simon Clarke said it was still committed to low taxes but made "no apologies" for increasing public spending.

Rishi Sunak told MPs the higher tax burden is down to the "unprecedented crisis" of the pandemic.

But the chancellor also turned on the spending taps in his Budget, after being widely expected to make cuts to in many government departments to help pay down the deficit.

He committed to spending increases of £150bn over three years, including nearly £2bn to help schools in England catch up following coronavirus, £6bn to tackle NHS backlogs and £7bn for transport projects.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank said the spending plans were "more similar" to those of the Labour governments in the 2000s than those of George Osborne - a former Conservative chancellor.

Mr Clarke told BBC Newsnight: "The chancellor was very open about the fact that this is something of a philosophical shift.

"What we want to see is to get the economy turbocharged, unlock productivity, and to deliver growth more evenly across UK. That does require some upfront spending."

Mr Sunak has sought to calm the fears of some Conservative MPs that the party has abandoned its core economic principles.

"Taxes are rising to their highest level as a percentage of GDP since the 1950s - I don't like it, but I cannot apologise for it - it's the result of the unprecedented crisis," he said in his Budget speech.

"But now, we have a choice," he said, adding "do we want to live in a country where the response to every question is: "what is the government going to do about it?"

"Or do we choose to recognise that government has limits, that government should have limits."

He later insisted to ITV's Robert Peston that this was not "empty rhetoric", adding that both he and the prime minister wanted to deliver lower taxes by the end of the Parliament.

He also told a meeting of backbench Conservative MPs on Wednesday night that "in the future every marginal pound should be put into lowering taxes".

Labour's shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves told ITV News that it was important to raise money "but not in the way the government is doing it".

She said the government was introducing big taxes but said "those taxes are not falling on the banks - bankers got a tax cut" in reference to a 5% cut in the surcharge levied on banks' profits.

She added that Labour would raise taxes on "online giants who aren't paying their fair share".

Just before the chancellor got to his feet, one former minister on the right of the party said he hoped this would be a pivot moment: back to the kind of government action, where Conservatives were seeking to shrink the state, seeking to reduce taxes, seeking to pull back from some of the very big government moves they made because of the pandemic.

Rishi Sunak had a little bit of extra cash to play with, but instead of using that wriggle room he had, to signal the government was going to become smaller, in fact he staked his post out in a landscape where big government is here to stay, and eye-watering levels of tax are here to stay for the foreseeable future (although he seemed to dangle a promise of tax cuts before the next election).

That has created Conservative tensions but clearly it's the political calculation of him and Boris Johnson that it's the right thing to do.

Mr Sunak also used his Budget to repeat pre-announced measures, including an end to the public sector pay freeze and an increase to the National Living Wage from £8.91 per hour to £9.50.

According to Office for Budget Responsibility figures, household disposable income is set to rise by 0.8% per year.

Economic growth is forecast to rise to 6.3% next year - higher than previously predicted - but it will then slow to 1.3% by 2023.

New Budget measures included:

A real-terms rise in spending for every government department

A freeze on fuel duty

Funding per pupil in England's schools is to be restored to 2010 levels over the next three years

A 5% cut to the extra corporation tax banks have to pay to "maintain competitiveness"

An extra £2.2bn for courts, prisons and probation services, including £500m to reduce courts backlogs

A cut in air passenger duty for internal UK flights - and a tax rise on "ultra long haul" flights

More support for industrial research and development

And the chancellor scrapped next year's planned increase in business rates in England and promised more frequent revaluations, and tax breaks for firms that make improvements to their properties, from 2023.

The government has faced strong criticism over its decision to reduce the universal credit benefit by £20-a-week.

Mr Sunak did not offer to maintain the £20 uplift - introduced during the pandemic - but instead announced that the "taper" would be cut so that instead of losing 63p of benefit for every £1 earned above the work allowance, the amount will be reduced to 55p.

Ms Reeves said that would not make up for the wider cuts to universal credit which affected five million families.

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Budget 2021: There has been a shift in Tory philosophy - minister

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Wednesday's Budget - which saw tax and spending rise to record levels - represents a major shift in Tory philosophy, a minister has claimed. The party has traditionally tried to cut taxes and keep spending down. Treasury Secretary Simon Clarke said it was still committed to low taxes but made "no apologies" for increasing public spending.

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Tory MP Lee Anderson says no massive need for food banks in UK, and real problem people not being able to cook properly
In his contribution to the Queen's speech debate the Conservative MP Lee Anderson said that a food bank in his Ashfield constituency operated a "brilliant scheme" whereby people accepting a donation had to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course. He went on:

We show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget. We can make a meal for about 30p a day, and this is cooking from scratch.

When the Labour MP Alex Cunningham put it to Anderson that food banks should not be needed in 21st century Britain, Anderson agreed. He went on:

This is exactly my point. I'll invite you personally to come to Ashfield, look at our food bank, how it works. And I'll think you'll see first hand that there's not this massive use for food banks in this country. We've got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can't cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget. The challenge is there.

From the context, it is clear that when he said there was not a "massive use for food banks", he meant no massive need for them.

That's all for our live coverage for today, but here's a summary of all the day's developments in case you missed them.

Conservative MP Lee Anderson was criticised after claiming the UK has no "massive use for food banks" and that people use them because they "cannot cook properly [or] budget"

Responding to the comments, Labour said: "Out of touch doesn't even cover it"

A number of Tory MPs called on the prime minister to introduce tax cuts to help address the cost of living

Boris Johnson visited Finland and Sweden to sign mutual security agreements with both countries

At a press conference in Helsinki, he said the invasion of Ukraine would not be the end of Vladimir Putin's "neo-imperialist ambitions" if he was not resisted

DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Robinson indicated his party may refuse to nominate a speaker for the Northern Ireland assembly until the government scraps the Northern Ireland protocol

The party had already said it would refuse to nominate a deputy first minister to the power-sharing executive at Stormont

Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove indicated the government was no longer committed to a manifesto target to build 300,000 homes a year

He also drew derision after affecting a series of strange voices to parody opponents during an interview with the BBC

Only 28% of Britons think Brexit is now "done", new data from YouGov shows.

A poll conducted by the firm showed that only 20% of people who supported the Remain campaign agreed that Brexit was done, while 62% said it wasn't. Among Leave voters, the equivalent figures were 40% and 46%.

It comes amid renewed tensions with the EU over threats by the UK government to unilaterally scrap the Northern Ireland protocol.

The prime minister is showing his backbenchers "more than a bit of ankle" on the prospect of introducing tax cuts soon, Conservative MP Jake Berry has said.

Berry represents Rossendale and Darwen in Lancashire and also chairs the Northern Research Group, a group made up of MPs elected to northerly constituencies in 2019 and formed to pressure the government for greater investment in the north and the so-called "red wall".

Speaking to Sky News, Berry said constituents were "feeling the pain" of the cost of living crisis, and that the Conservative party would have to "look after our people" if it wants to hold seats won in 2019.

"That is why we are working with the PM and other government ministers to find ways we can help alleviate some of these cost pressures," he said.

Asked if that meant the government was considering introducing tax cuts soon, Berry said: "I think the prime minister is listening to colleagues, and he's certainly beginning to show more than a little bit of ankle in this area."

But he also added: "We want him to do more, we want him to act now. It's kind of now or never for the prime minister on the cost of living question."

More reaction now to those comments on food banks from Tory MP Lee Anderson, this time from Frances O'Grady, general secretary of the Trade Union Congress.

"Many people who use food banks are in work. These remarks are insulting and show how out of touch Conservative MPs and ministers are with the cost of living emergency," O'Grady said.

"While the government sits on its hands, families across Britain are being pushed to the brink by soaring bills and prices.

"Rather than being condescending, Conservative politicians should be putting pressure on the chancellor to call an emergency budget."

Lee Anderson said cooking lessons and not food banks are what Britons need. Photograph: Parliament TV

Footage shows London mayor Sadiq Khan throwing the opening pitch at a baseball game at the San Fransisco Giants' stadium.

It comes during a four-day trip to the US by the mayor to promote the UK capital to international investors and help support its recovery from the pandemic.

Inviting a guest of honour to throw the first pitch at a baseball game is a longstanding tradition in the US, with the country's presidents going back to the late 19th century often taking part.

Khan threw the first pitch at a game between the hometown Giants and the Colorado Rockies at the Oracle Park stadium.

It follows the announcement that Major League Baseball will play regular-season games in London in 2023, 2024 and 2026 as part of a long-term strategic partnership.

Tory MP and chair of the Treasury select committee Mel Stride has said he expects the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, to announce measures to help tackle the cost of living crisis "in a matter of weeks".

Speaking to Times Radio, Stride said: "There is an absolute urgency to this. And there will be lots of thinking going on in the Treasury.

"And I suspect, the chancellor - whether we call it an emergency budget, or just a statement of the House, or whatever it's dressed up as - I think the chancellor will be, I suspect, having more to say in a matter of weeks, or a month or so, rather than waiting right until the autumn of this year."

Speaking last month, Sunak said it would be "silly" to announce more measures to help with energy bills before it was known how much prices would rise in the coming months, though pledged to look again at more support in the autumn.

Stride continued: "My bet, for what it's worth, is that I think the pressure will be such that he will be appearing before the House well before the autumn, laying out various things. He might wait for some of the stuff around energy to see where that energy cap is going to be raised in the autumn. So he might leave that a little bit later.

"But I think in the meantime, I suspect there will be various things wheeled out not just by the chancellor, but other ministers as well, all of them focused on this burning issue of the cost of living challenge."

Karen Buck MP, Labour's shadow work and pensions minister, has responded to a claim by Conservative MP Lee Anderson that people use food banks because they "cannot cook properly [or] budget" (see the pinned post at the top of the blog for the clip).

Buck said: "In the world where people actually live we now hear daily stories of families going without food and others unable to turn their ovens on in fear of rising energy bills.

"The idea that the problem is cooking skills and not 12 years of government decisions that are pushing people into extreme poverty is beyond belief.

"Out of touch doesn't even cover it."

Haroon Siddique

The UK's three human rights commissions have expressed concern about plans to scrap the Human Rights Act (HRA) and replace it with a British bill of rights, as announced in Tuesday's Queen's speech.

In evidence before parliament's joint committee on human rights, senior figures from all three commissions (for England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland respectively) highlighted the achievements of the HRA and said there was no case for it to be replaced.

Alyson Kilpatrick, chief executive at the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, said: "We would certainly want to see the Human Rights Act strengthened, not diminished.

"We don't recognise the basis upon which these proposals have been put forward, certainly not in Northern Ireland, and we think it has paid scant regard, in fact, to the impact that has been seen in Northern Ireland of stronger human rights and protection. So we would be very concerned to see any weakening of the Human Rights Act by replacement or amended bill of rights."

She said the HRA was central to the peace process and that the police in Northern Ireland had been "transformed beyond recognition" as a result of having to comply with the European Convention of Human Rights, which was given effect in UK law by the HRA.

Barbara Bolton, head of legal and policy at the Scottish Human Rights Commission, said: "The Scottish Human Rights Commission is extremely concerned about the proposals and the severe negative impact that those proposals would have on access to justice and access to a remedy for individuals across society and the potential that this would leave the UK in breach in particular, of Article 13 (right to remedy) of the European Convention (of Human Rights)."

She also said repealing the HRA had "potential for unsettling devolution" because it is embedded in the Scotland Act, which provides for the establishment of a Scottish Parliament and administration.

Baroness Falkner, chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (which covers England and Wales), said the HRA "has played and continues to play a vital role in strengthening the protection of human rights in the United Kingdom".

She recognised that the government has specific concerns "but that doesn't to us build a convincing case for an overall deep and substantive review of the act of this point".

Boris Johnson has also commented on the cost of living crisis at the press conference in Helsinki. It was put to him by LBC's Nick Ferrari that he was "very good at supporting Ukraine, but ... lamentably poor at supporting your own people".

He responded: "What we've got to do right now is help people through the aftershocks of the Covid pandemic just as we helped people through Covid, and we will. Everybody knows how tough it can be right now, but we're going to get through it.

"You know all the money we're already spending. There will be more. Of course there will be more support in the months ahead as things continue to be tough with the increase in the energy prices."

He then added: "But I just want to explain to people why it is so important that we stand strong against aggression in Ukraine at the same time.

"Because there is no doubt at all, looking at what Vladimir Putin has done, that if he were not to be resisted ... this would not be the end of his neo-imperialist, revanchist ambitions.

"And just imagine the consequences, not just military or political, but economic, of further Russian aggression against any of the other former parts of the Soviet Union. And it's to prevent that further catastrophe that it's so important that we are together strong now."

A press conference held jointly by the prime minister, Boris Johnson, and the Finnish president, Sauli Niinistö, is getting under way in Helsinki. The prime minister has visited both Sweden and Finland today to sign mutual security declarations with both countries.

Asked by a journalist from Svenska Yle whether the declaration would mean British boots on the ground on Finnish territory in the event of a conflict with Russia, he says: "Let me be clear, because I think the solemn declaration is itself clear.

"And what it says is that in the event of a disaster or in the event of an attack on either of us, then yes we will come to each other's assistance, including with military assistance. But the nature of that assistance will of course depend upon the request of the other party.

"But it's also intended to be the foundation of an intensification of our security and our defence relationship in other ways as well."

This segment was amended on 13 May 2022 because an earlier version incorrectly referred to Svenska Yle as Sweden's public broadcaster.

Tory MP Lee Anderson accused of 'insulting' parents who rely on food banks

Andrew Sparrow

The Child Poverty Action Group has accused the Tory MP Lee Anderson of "insulting" people who rely on food banks in the Commons earlier. (See 3.21pm.) Alison Garnham, its chief executive, said:

Four million children are living in poverty in the UK, and it's not because their parents can't cook.

There are few households better at budgeting than those on a low income, they have to do it every single day.

Rather than insulting parents who have no option but to use foodbanks in the face of soaring costs and real terms income cuts, politicians would do better to back real-world solutions, like bringing benefits in line with inflation this autumn.

That is all from me for today. My colleague Christy Cooney is now taking over.

The UK will probably have to go through a "mild recession" if not worse before inflation comes back to a more manageable level, top economists have warned MPs. PA Media reports:

London School of Economics professor Charles Goodhart said that wages and prices were feeding off each other to push up inflation, and this could not be weakened without the labour market weakening.

"The likelihood is that we're going to have to have at the very least a mild recession and unemployment rising," he told MPs on the Treasury select committee.

His comments were echoed by Adam Posen, the president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

"The sad reality is there is going to have to be an economic slowdown in the UK beyond what is already on the cards in order to get inflation sustainably back to target," he said.

Posen said that the UK was facing problems that are more like those seen in the US, despite pursuing a more European approach to stimulating the economy during Brexit.

"To me this tells you that this is something idiosyncratic to the UK about how the same inflation shock of Covid reopening, of energy prices, of Ukraine, is being transmitted to the UK," he said.

"I think a large part of this is Brexit, because what has happened is you don't have the flexible labour supply of migrants coming from Europe, who can both add to the labour supply, but also go in and out of work as needed."

Last week the Bank of England raised interest rates to 1%, the highest for 13 years, in a bid to combat soaring inflation.

It predicts that inflation could rise to above 10% later this year.

Boris Johnson has also restated the government's intention to do more to help people with the cost of living, the Sun's Kate Ferguson reports.

More cost of living support on the way?

Boris Johnson: "I am not ruling out that we will do more to help - of course we will do more to help."
- Kate Ferguson (@kateferguson4) May 11, 2022

For some time now the government has been saying further help for people with the cost of living will come later this year. What is uncertain is when this might arrive (originally the plan was to wait until late summer for the next massive intervention, but the government is under pressure to bring that forward), and what form it will take (tax cuts, grants or welfare payments?).

In an interview with ITV, Boris Johnson was asked again whether he would resgin over Partygate, in the light of Keir Starmer's announcement that he will resign if he is fined. Johnson ignored the question completely and just spoke about Ukraine, and the new security assurances.

'I'm going to get on with making sure that we try to fortify the defences of Europe against the clear potential of Russia to launch unprovoked aggression'@BorisJohnson, asked if he will resign over the partygate scandal, suggests he is more focused on the threat from Putin pic.twitter.com/rMrM1pyPMG
- ITV News Politics (@ITVNewsPolitics) May 11, 2022

Stephen Crabb, the former work and pensions secretary, has posted this on Twitter explaining why he thinks the government needs to do more to address the cost of living crisis.

Conservatives tend to emphasise work, good budgeting/housekeeping, strong families etc as defences against hardship. Problem right now for many people is that ticking all those boxes still doesn't keep their heads above water. Government has done a lot but more is required
- Stephen Crabb (@SCrabbPembs) May 11, 2022

Crabb is on the one nation, left of the Conservative party. David Davis is on the Thatcherite right. If both of them (see 2.41pm), are demanding some sort of significant, cost of living bailout, then there are probably few MPs in the party who aren't.

Lisa Nandy, the shadow levelling up secretary, says the Tories can no longer claim to be the party of home ownership. In a statement commenting on Michael Gove's admission this morning that the Conservatives are no longer committed to the manifesto target of building 300,000 homes a year by the mid-2020s (see 9.35am), she said:

Under the Conservatives housing has become less affordable, spending on rent has skyrocketed, and home ownership has gone down. All this puts more pressure on families facing a cost of living crisis.

The Conservatives can no longer claim to be the party of home ownership. We need a government that will take action now to help people who are struggling with rising bills and prices, and that will invest to give them the long-term security of owning their own home.

According to Labour, average house prices in England rose by 56% between 2010 and 2021, while average wages went up by just 20%. The party also says that in England there were 211,000 fewer working-age homeowners in 2020-21 than in 2009-10.

Lisa Nandy. Photograph: Tayfun Salcı/Zuma Press Wire/Rex/Shutterstock

A reader BTL (below the line) has been in touch to say that taking visiting dignitaries out in the rowing boat is a tradition for Swedish prime ministers when they have visitors at their country retreat.

Boris Johnson has entered the caption competition. (See 2.27pm.)

Today we made history by signing a joint declaration of solidarity to strengthen our security and defence ties and bring our nations even closer together.

We are literally and metaphorically in the same boat.

🇬🇧🇸🇪 https://t.co/4jML46tGNS
- Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) May 11, 2022

In the course of a Twitter exchange with Adam Wagner, the barrister and Covid regulations specialist, Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson's former chief adviser, says Johnson was personally involved in the government's decision in 2020 to exempt grouse shooting from Covid rules.

by June he was full - i shd never have listened to you. i shd have been the mayor of jaws. i shd have ignored the whole thing. it's swine flu... and we gotta exempt grouse shooting or the mps will go crackers
[officials/lawyers clutch heads]
- Dominic Cummings (@Dominic2306) May 11, 2022

i was driving on a sunday, switch, pm wants conference call, u & covid taskforce...
argh getting loads of incoming on grouse shooting, argh chief says it's bad we're gonna have to fold on this one yeah i know it sounds crazy...
me (punching steering wheel) no no no no NOOOOOOO
- Dominic Cummings (@Dominic2306) May 11, 2022

By "chief", Cummings is referring to the chief whip - at the time Mark Spencer.

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Tory MP says no massive need for food banks in UK and real problem is people's cooking skills - as it happened

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Tory MP Lee Anderson says no massive need for food banks in UK, and real problem people not being able to cook properly In his contribution to the Queen's speech debate the Conservative MP Lee Anderson said that a food bank in his Ashfield constituency operated a "brilliant scheme" whereby people accepting a donation had to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course.

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stories of pointing fingers education-health-social care

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social care won't let you spend money they give you, which you'll have to pay back, you're basically acting like a bank for social care funding

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Corruption, prices of medicine going up, profit, nepotism
"jobs for the boys"
Every Prime Minister has done the exact dame degree at Oxford

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Abuse in top 10 schools
Trauma of going to boarding schools
Long term effects

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Access to work

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Nursing Homes first major fracture line

Reduced funding for long term health conditions due to privatisation

Statistic: A 5th/3rd of the UK has a disability, lines up with poverty statistic

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notes mysteriously disappearing

meeting where someone said they'd "never fund services for autism in stockport"

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getting stuck in bureaucratic processes

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untrained staff to stop people from access funding

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"The UK governments policies have led to the systematic immiseration of millions across Great Britain"

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UN report quotes and satistics

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Thesis: What is your position? (1 sentence)

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Thesis: What is your position? (1 sentence)

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Playground politics a self-fulfilling policy? - The childish carelessness of our government is killing people. What needs to change?

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We are just going through the manifesto, the points in this essay are based on Torie party policy.

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education minister changes seat every couple of years - musical chairs

duck duck goose of who is at fault

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party games

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use previous conservative manifesto funding breakdown in introduction as forecast where it is going to go

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Manslaughter by gross negligence

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“Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.” – Harriet Tubman

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“We realize the importance of our voices only when we are silenced.” – Malala Yousafzai

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“It seems the only way to gain attention today is to organize a march and protest something.” – Billy Graham

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“Every moment is an organizing opportunity, every person a potential activist, every minute a chance to change the world.” – Dolores Huerta

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“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” – Elie Wiesel

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“If you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism.” — Stephen Shore

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"Theories and goals of education don't matter a whit if you do not consider your students to be human beings." - Lou Ann Walker

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"Just as eating against one's will is injurious to health, so study without a liking for it spoils the memory, and it retains nothing it takes in." - Leonardo Da Vinci

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"The principle goal of education is to create men who are capable of doing new things, not simply of repeating what other generations have done -- men who are creative, inventive and discoverers." - Jean Piaget

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"No one has yet realised the wealth of sympathy, the kindness and generosity hidden in the soul of a child. The effort of every true education should be to unlock that treasure." - Emma Gouldman

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"We have come to realise that for most men the right to learn is curtailed by the obligation to attend school" - Ivan Illich

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Write down any arguments you can think of, that support your thesis

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Write down any arguments you can think of, that support your thesis

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Write down a short, relevant anecdote in bullet points

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Write down a short, relevant anecdote in bullet points