A Conservative parliamentary candidate has defended a controversial fringe view that people with learning disabilities should be paid less than the minimum wage because “they don’t understand money”, The Guardian reports.
Sally-Ann Hart was heckled as she made the remarks at a Hastings and Rye constituency hustings earlier this week, where she is vying to defend the Tories’ wafer-thin majority after Amber Rudd stood down.
A furore ensued after Hart, a councillor in East Sussex, was challenged over an article she had shared on Facebook that said “people with learning difficulties should be allowed to work for less than the minimum wage”.
“It was about people with learning difficulties,” she told the crowd. “About them being given the opportunity to work because it’s to do with the happiness they have about working … Some people with learning difficulties they don’t understand about money.
Labour condemned her remarks and claimed the Conservatives had created a “hostile environment” for people with disabilities that would continue to push people into poverty unless the party was voted out.
