The Tory leadership candidate Kemi Badenoch has been criticised for a campaign pamphlet that said autistic people received “better treatment” and “economic privileges and protections”. A pamphlet published by Badenoch’s campaign team at the Conservative party conference argued that conditions such as anxiety, as well as an autism diagnosis, had gone from something “people should work on themselves as individuals” to “something that society, schools, and employers have to adapt around”. The 36-page essay, titled Conservatism in Crisis, claims to identify factors holding back economic growth. It was not written solely by Badenoch but it features her campaign branding throughout, and she promoted it at conference fringe events.
Robert Buckland, a former cabinet colleague of Badenoch, criticised the remarks about autism and suggested they were “stigmatising” the spectrum condition. Buckland, a former justice secretary who published a review into employment rates among autistic people, told the i paper that the essay’s section on autism appeared “muddled” and should not be “stigmatising or lumping certain categories in with each other”. “Anxiety is not a neurodiverse condition … autism is not a mental health condition,” he said. “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.” Anxiety is considered a mental health condition by the NHS, while the National Autistic Society defines autism as a developmental disability. The Buckland review found that at least 700,000 autistic people were economically inactive because of the barriers they faced in finding work.
The essay said being diagnosed as neurodiverse had gone from “an individual focused challenge” that “meant you could understand your own brain” to something that “offers economic advantages and protections”. It said diagnoses of anxiety or autism were being treated similarly to race or sex discrimination, and that children with the conditions “may well get better treatment or equipment at school” including transport to and from home. It added that an autism diagnosis in the workforce came with better employment protections against unfair dismissal and a requirement for workplaces to make reasonable adjustments. The essay said it was positive there was more openness around mental health, but the requirement for schools and workplaces to make adjustments for it had “created costs and failed to improve people’s mental health outcomes”. A spokesperson for Badenoch told the i that it was “wrong to infer any prejudice” from the report and that it was “essential that we are able to talk about these issues without the media deliberately misleading their readers for the sake of easy headlines”. “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,” they said. Badenoch, who is seen as the frontrunner in the Tory leadership contest, has repeatedly been criticised for controversial comments. During the Tory conference, she faced backlash for suggesting that maternity pay in the UK, which is among the lowest in member countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, was “excessive”.