Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the National Disability Strategy published on 28 July 2021, which of her Department’s commitments in that strategy that have not been paused as a result of legal action have (a) been fully, (b) been partially and (c) not been implemented.

In January 2022, the High Court declared the National Disability Strategy (NDS) was unlawful because the UK Disability Survey, which informed it, was held to be a voluntary consultation that failed to comply with the legal requirements on public consultations.

The Home Office had 4 policies included in the National Disability Strategy. These included:

1. Tackle the accessibility skills gap:

• A cross-government digital accessibility profession has been defined and fully implemented:

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/accessibility-specialist

• A paper called Accessibility in Procurement has been drafted by a cross-government team of procurement, digital, disability and other experts​ and continues to progress and is therefore partially implemented.

2. The Home Office and DHSC will jointly lead a review into the protections and support available to adults abused in their own homes by people providing their care, coordinating inputs from wider government, disabled people, carers organisations and other interested parties.

• This has been fully implemented as the Safe Care at Home Review has now been published. We will continue to work with stakeholders and wider government to improve the support and protections available to people with care and support needs who are at risk of, or are being abused in their own home by the people providing their care.

3. All 3 security agencies – MI5, MI6 and GCHQ – will ensure that our workforce will be fully representative of wider society we serve by 2030.

• This commitment is ongoing.

4. In 2021, the Home Office will publish a new cross-government strategy to tackle the crime and disorder that undermines the quality of life for everyone. This will include tackling hate crime, of which tackling disability hate crime will be an integral part. The Home Office commits to work with disabled people and other disability stakeholders to develop the new strategy for publication in the autumn.

• This commitment has not been implemented
• We will not publish a new Hate Crime Strategy because the Government is focussing on improving the police response to all crime. This approach represents the best use of public money. We remain committed to continuing to protect all communities from crime.

• Our absolute priority is to get more police into our streets, cut crime, protect the public and bring more criminals to justice. We are supporting police by providing them with the resources they need. This has included the recruitment of 20,000 extra police officers.

We remain fully committed to supporting disabled people in the UK through creating more opportunities, protecting their rights and ensuring they fully benefit from, and can contribute to, every aspect of our society. To support this, The Home Office will be providing further details of our recent achievements to improve disabled people’s lives in the forthcoming Disability Action Plan consultation due for publication in the summer.

Ahead of this, the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work will write providing a list of these achievements and will place a copy in the House Library.