Question to the Northern Ireland Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, how many equalities impact assessments his Department completed in each of the last five years for which data is available.

My Department has obligations in relation to equality considerations under both Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 and Section 149 of the Equality Act 2010. Under Section 75, the Northern Ireland Office as a designated public body has a statutory duty to screen all new, proposed or revised policies in relation to functions delivered in Northern Ireland for potential equality impacts and consider a full equality impact assessment (EQIA) for any policies screened in.

In the last five years, the Northern Ireland Office has published over 29 screenings and one EQIA in 2022.

Further information on the Northern Ireland Office’s Equality Scheme and its published equality assessments can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/northern-ireland-office.