Badenoch accused of ‘stigmatising’ autism and mental health issues in comments over support – UK politics live

The Alba party will seek to continue Alex Salmond’s legacy, its acting leader and a lifelong friend of the former first minister has said.

Speaking on BBC Radio Scotland this morning, Kenny MacAskill – who served in Salmond’s cabinet and defected with him to his new party in 2021 – said Alba would continue despite Salmond’s surprise death at the weekend. He said:

Of course, the party continues, we owe it to Alex.

It was never the Alex Salmond party, it was Alex Salmond’s inspiration and Alex Salmond’s driving force, but the party is made up of thousands more and, as I say, that legacy will continue.

Writing to Alba party members on Monday, MacAskill paraphrased Salmond’s resignation speech, saying: “The dream he cherished so closely and came so close to delivering will never die. We will honour him.”

The Autism Centre of Excellence at Cambridge, a charity that works with Cambridge University’s Autism Research Centre, has put out a post on social media strongly criticising Kemi Badenoch for the comments about autism released earlier this month in an essay put out under her name. (See 9.40am.) The centre says:

We fully agree with @iburrell in @theipaper that @KemiBadenoch’s comments are ‘an offensive claim far removed from the grim reality of many despairing citizens and families struggling for support.’

We need leaders who take the time to understand the complexity of the issues they are commenting on – and who bring workable solutions to the table. The best way to do both is to talk to people with lived experience.

We believe that #autistic people and parents would agree that the Government has failed to provide a good education, employment opportunities and the right care. Anyone with an interest in running our country would ask themselves why this is.

The centre is referring to this article by Ian Birrell, the journalist and former Independent deputy editor who at one point wrote speeches for David Cameron. In his article for the i, Birrell says:

Another key issue is the low status of carers in society. And this was demonstrated by his rival Kemi Badenoch during the conference hustings, when she talked about focusing on the future “not just who’s going to wipe bottoms for us today.”

No wonder social care never gets fixed and carers are left badly paid when a prominent politician sneers so dismissively at workers performing a public service. And now Badenoch, in a report called “Conservatism in Crisis” released this month, argues that autism diagnosis can give children “better treatment at school” and “offers economic advantages and protection” – an offensive claim far removed from the grim reality of many despairing citizens and families struggling for support.

Such is the tragic state of today’s Conservative party. Arrogant, blustering, heartless and out of touch with concerns of ordinary people. There is hollow talk of renewal, but we see again why this historically formidable election fighting machine crashed and burned.

More than 100 venues are backing Martyn’s law to help protect the public from terror attacks, ahead of the second reading of the terrorism (protection of premises) bill in the House of Commons today.

Parts of the bill are named for Martyn Hett, 29, who was killed along with 21 other people when suicide bomber Salman Abedi attacked the Manchester Arena in 2017 at the close of an Ariana Grande concert.

His mother, Figen Murray, has been campaigning ever since to ensure that venues are better prepared in the event of a terror attack.

The new provisions would require all venues with a capacity of more than 200 to ensure they have a plan in place in case of an attack on their premises.

More than 100 businesses – from McDonald’s to the Slug & Lettuce chain – are backing the bill.

Speaking on BBC Breakfast earlier, Murray said:

Certainly I feel this is the beginning of the end of the campaign, although there’s a bit to go still. But, yeah, I can see it’s coming to fruition now, finally.

She said there is global interest in the proposed law, with no similar legislation currently in place.

Martyn’s law is never meant to be punitive or onerous, like some people may suggest; it literally is very proportionate.

It depends on the size of the venue, and it’s obviously in two tiers as well, and the standard tier is actually far less restrictions than the bigger venues, 800-plus, who may have to put more stringent measures in place.

The feedback we got is that there is actually either no cost or very low cost.

It’s common sense, and at the end of the day you need to just do the right thing and keep your customers and staff safe.

In a separate interview on the Today programme, Murray recalled a conversation she had recently had with Keir Starmer when he asked how she had found the energy to keep going with her campaign on this issue. She said she had told him: “Actually, having your child’s ashes on a bookshelf is a good motivator.”

Shares in British gambling companies have dropped sharply, reducing the stock market value of large operators by more than £3bn, after the Guardian reported that Treasury officials could tap the sector for between £900m and £3bn in extra taxes, Rob Davies reports.

Yesterday Robert Jenrick said that, if he was elected Tory leader, he would make Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former business secretary, the Conservative party chair.

Rees-Mogg is no longer an MP, having lost his seat at the election, but he is very popular with Conservative rightwingers and viewers of GB News, where he is a presenter.

In a sign of his desire to reach out to Tory “moderates” too, Jenrick has also said he would like “bring back” Penny Mordaunt, the former defence secretary and leader of the Commons, as the Telegraph reports. Mordaunt also lost her seat during the election. But Jenrick has not said how he would like to offer Mordaunt a role, suggesting that winning over Rees-Mogg fans is more of a priority.

Having Rees-Mogg as party chair would be a big statement about where Jenrick wanted to take the party. In their excellent and very readable account of Liz Truss’s time as prime minister, Truss at 10, Anthony Seldon and Jonathan Meakin point out that, when Truss was planning what she would do as PM, some of Rees-Moggs’s ideas were regarded as bonkers even by her team. Seldon and Meakin say:

[At a meeting in August with economists] Littlewood and fellow economist Julian Jessop were present at the tutorial, as was Rees-Mogg, hoping to be her chancellor. Did she need this turbocharging? Even some of her most ardent ideological supporters had reservations: ‘Their radicalism gave fresh tinder to something that was already burning too brightly within Liz,’ said Simon Clarke. The ideas flew around the room. A few days later, the idea of scrapping the cap on bankers’ bonuses was mentioned. ‘Let’s go for it!’ Reducing the 45p tax rate? ‘Long overdue.’ ‘How about replacing all direct taxes with a flat 20p rate of income tax?’ ‘Great idea, Jacob.’ This last proposal was nicknamed ‘Estonia’ (a reference to a similar policy adopted there) and Rees-Mogg ‘estimated it would cost £41 billion’. ‘I’d long been attracted to the idea of flat rate taxes,’ Truss said later.

‘These ideas might have been fine if it had been a blue skies airing of a hundred things that we might do together at some point. But these guys were deadly serious,’ recalled one adviser. He watched with horror as those present vied with each other to produce the most radical and outlandish ideas, none more so than Rees-Mogg. ‘What is the number one problem with the UK energy system?’ he asked. Silence. ‘Not enough nuclear power,’ he said, answering his own question. ‘We need more small reactors in the UK.’ ‘How would you do it?’ one asked. ‘We should get a nuclear submarine to dock at Liverpool and plug it into the grid. That would show people it was safe.’ Shock. Simon Case quietly interjected, ‘I fear that’s a non-starter: the submarines are needed on operations.’ ‘No one even laughed. It was totally pie in the sky. I thought they should’ve been blowing up these ideas rather than legitimising them,’ said another present. After they left, her young aides rounded on her: ‘Liz, this is totally mad. You’re not really serious about these ideas, are you?’ ‘I was worried,’ Kwarteng later said. ‘Liz was losing her perspective.

Lammy says his talks with EU foreign minister mark ‘historic moment’

Jennifer Rankin

The foreign secretary David Lammy has hailed “a historic moment” that marks the UK’s post-Brexit reset, as he entered talks with the EU’s chief diplomat and his 27 European counterparts.

Arriving at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg, Lammy said he was delighted to be at the foreign affairs council “for this historic moment that marks our EU reset”.

In brief remarks to reporters, he said:

The UK and Europe’s security is indivisible. And at this time, whether it is the aggression of Russia in Ukraine, the tremendous issues and conflicts in the Middle East, or global affairs and geopolitical affairs more generally, it is hugely important that the United Kingdom and Europe remain steadfast and clear.

Lammy is not the first UK foreign secretary to attend the EU foreign affairs council since Brexit – Liz Truss attended an emergency meeting soon after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – but he is the first for many years to come with an upbeat, pro-EU agenda.

The EU’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell said he had invited Lammy soon after his appointment as foreign secretary, to discuss security and common challenges.

We are neighbours, we are partners, we share the same concerns.

I know that we both have the same ambition to cooperate to strengthen our cooperation and security and defence, because the security challenges that we are facing go across borders, they don’t know borders.

The EU was hugely disappointed when the former prime minister Boris Johnson rejected a formal foreign policy and security relationship, so Lammy is pushing at an open door with his ideas for deeper cooperation.

The talks today – a bilateral with Borrell and a working lunch with EU foreign ministers – are expected to focus on Ukraine and the Middle East, but EU diplomats are also curious to hear about the UK government’s plans for a foreign policy and security pact.

Foreign and security policy will be easier terrain to find common ground with the EU than the economic relationship, where the UK has to navigate the bloc’s red lines aimed at protecting the integrity of the European single market.

Elon Musk would be welcome at future UK investment summits if and when he had investment programmes the UK could bid for, Peter Kyle, the science secretary, has said. Peter Walker has the story.

And Graeme Wearden has full coverage of the investment summit on his business live blog.

As mentioned earlier, Robert Jenrick, Kemi Badenoch’s rival for the Tory leadership, is also facing criticism over health-related remarks. In an interview with the Sunday Times published yesterday, he called for Amanda Pritchard, chief executive of NHS England, to be sacked. Jenrick said:

It’s particularly disappointing that Amanda Pritchard essentially denied the NHS has a problem with productivity in front of a select committee last year,” he says. “[She] has presided over plummeting productivity and then denied there is a problem. Having spoken to many people in and around the NHS, I do query whether she is the best person Britain has to run the NHS. It’s nothing personal against her. I know she’s very professional. But I do think it’s time for someone new, who gets that NHS productivity has to improve.

In a post on social media last night Matthew Taylor, head of the NHS Confederation, which represents hospitals and other NHS trusts, said it was unfair for Jenrick to attack a civil servant who is not meant to answer back.

I have no stake in the Conservative leadership race and the Confed does not always agree with @NHSEngland but I think Robert Jenrick’s call for @AmandaPritchard to be sacked is regrettable. It is inappropriate and unfair especially, as a public servant, she cannot respond.

Good morning. It is a big day for the government, with Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves both speaking at its international investment summit, an event intended to showcase Labour’s commitment to revive the economy and kickstart growth. As Kiran Stacey reports in his overnight story, Starmer is promising to slash red tape and “rip out the bureaucracy that blocks investment” – in language that sounds very similar to what his Conservative predecessors used to say when they were launching similar initiatives.

I will be covering some of what happens at the summit here, but Graeme Wearden will be leading the coverage of it on his business live blog.

In other news, with ballot papers for the Tory leadership contest going out to members this week, that contest is heating up. The bookmakers have Kemi Badenoch as the favourite, but their odds put Robert Jenrick not far behind and no one is predicting the winner with any confidence. This morning Jenrick and Badenoch are both facing criticism. Jenrick is under fire for calling for the head of NHS England to be sacked, and for attacking Labour over migration centre contracts that the Home Office started putting out to tender when he was a minister there himself. But the Badenoch row may be more serious, because she has been criticised by a former Tory cabinet colleague over her comments about people with autism and anxiety problems.

At the Conservative conference Badenoch’s team released a 36-page essay called Conservatism in Crisis which identifies many factors supposedly holding back growth. On anxiety and autism it says:

It is a positive thing our society is now more open around mental health. However, the socialisation of mental health, whereby mental health moved from something that people worked on for their own benefit, to something where everyone had to treat you differently, has both created costs and failed to improve people’s mental health outcomes ….

[A change in the perception of harm] helps explains why people who had suffered events once seen as non-traumatic now feel entitled to support. This increases demand for psychologists and therapists, required to help people previously seen as able to cope. As will be set out in the forthcoming book [based on the essay] across the psychological and psychotherapy professions, numbers have risen from 102,000 in 2002 to 223,700 in 2023.

Being diagnosed as neuro-diverse was once seen as helpful as it meant you could understand your own brain, and so help you to deal with the world. It was an individual focused change. But now it also offers economic advantages and protections. If you have a neurodiversity diagnosis (e.g. anxiety, autism), then that is usually seen as a disability, a category similar to race or biological sex in terms of discrimination law and general attitudes.

If you are a child, you may well get better treatment or equipment at school – even transport to and from home. If you are in the workforce, you are protected in employment terms from day 1, you can more easily claim for unfair dismissal, and under disability rules you can also require your employer makes ‘reasonable adjustments’ to your job (and you can reveal your disability once you have been employed rather than before).

In short, whereas once psychological and mental health was seen as something that people should work on themselves as individuals, mental health has become something that society, schools and employers have to adapt around.

As Eleanor Langford reports in a story for the i, these comments have been strongly criticised by Robert Buckland, a former Tory justice secretary who has an autistic daughter and who conducted a review of employment opportunities for autistic people for the last government, after he left ministerial office. Buckland told the i that it was wrong for the Badenoch report to be “stigmatising or lumping certain categories in with each other”. He added:

Anxiety is not a neurodiverse condition … autism is not a mental health condition.

That part of the report didn’t seem to me to be based on any evidence, and mixing up autism with mental health is not right. It’s not the correct approach to be taken into this.

A spokesperson for Badenoch said she only wrote the foreward to the report published at the Tory conference and that it was wrong to says it was stigmatising people. The spokesperson said:

If we are to resolve the problem of deteriorating mental health, we must be able to point out that it is happening and how society has changed its approach to it and determine whether that approach is working.

It would be wrong to infer any prejudice and it is essential that we are able to talk about these issues without the media deliberately misleading their readers for the sake of easy headlines.

Here is the agenda for the day.

Morning: David Lammy, the foreign secretary, is in Luxembourg attending a meeting of the EU’s foreign affairs council.

10.05am: Keir Starmer gives a speech at the government’s investment summit, before taking part in a Q&A with Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google. At 4.20pm Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, will give a speech closing the summit. Our main coverage of the summit will be on Graeme Wearden’s business live blog, which is here.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

2.30pm: John Healey, the defence secretary, takes questions in the Commons.

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