Comedian and Strictly Come Dancing winner, Chris McCausland, will use Channel 4’s Alternative Christmas Message to personally urge employers to tackle discrimination of disabled people and for improvements to be made to the government-backed grant, Access to Work, that covers access costs for disabled people in employment.
Department for Work and Pensions’ figures estimate that disabled people make up almost a quarter (23%) of the working-age population. But rates of unemployment among disabled people remain statistically high with 50% of disabled people of working age without employment, that's double the national average. Having lost his eyesight in his twenties, Chris also points out that 75% of blind and partially sighted people of working age are without employment, three times the national average.
Having spent the last 13 weeks wowing the nation with his magnificent dancing Chris has reflected on how disabled people are underestimated. He believes that “Disabled people are often some of the most resilient, creative and determined people you will ever likely meet. We have to be in daily life and that makes us valuable people to have on the team. We can even win national dance competitions, just saying!”
Chris asks if more can be done to address the delays that disabled people often face when using Access to Work. He fears that these delays to workplace adjustments can prevent employers from seeking to employ disabled people in the first place, even though they are qualified and able to work.
Access to Work is a government service that provides funding for workplace support and access technology for disabled people. When disabled people secure employment they can access the service to obtain the support or technology they need to do the job they have been employed to do. The average wait is around 43 days (as of April 2024). Chris says this timeframe should be shorter and says he would like it to be brought down to under four weeks as soon as possible, to enable disabled people to get on and do the job they have been employed to do. Chris points out that delays strip away the “confidence, dignity, and purpose” of disabled people.
Chris’s Alternative Christmas Message will air on Channel 4 at 16:50 on Christmas Day
First airing in 1993, Channel 4’s Alternative Christmas Message has served as an alternative to the monarch’s annual televised address to the nation to bring viewers a thought-provoking message that is pertinent to the events of the past year. The message has previously featured an illustrious and varied selection of presenters, including the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; whistle-blower Edward Snowden; Afghan war veteran Major Andrew Stockton; William Pooley, the British nurse who survived Ebola; Katie Piper; Quentin Crisp; the Reverend Jesse Jackson; Doreen and Neville Lawrence; children who survived the Grenfell Tower disaster; The Simpsons; 9/11 survivor Genelle Guzman; a ‘deepfake’ digitally created depiction of Her Majesty The Queen, Ameca, one of the world’s most advanced robots, who delivered a speech generated entirely by AI, and most recently, in 2023 Stephen Fry spoke about the rise in anti-Semitism.
The 2025 Alternative Christmas Message was commissioned for Channel 4 by Timothy Hancock and Cimran Shah. Neil Breakwell was the Executive Producer for October Films with Production Manager, Holly Lawrence, Neil Bonner directing, and Alfie Turner, producing.
Read Chris McCausland's Christmas Message here
