Question

To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of provisions in the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and the Equality Act 2010 in improving access for self-employed disabled people to access professional networking events; and if she will make a statement.

The Government carried out a post-legislative scrutiny review of the Equality Act 2010 (the Act) in 2015, which can be found at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/post-legislative-memorandum-the-equality-act-2010

The review noted that, in the area of disability, the Act introduced a number of protections that had not been present in the Disability Discrimination Act. These included the extension of indirect discrimination to disability; the introduction of discrimination arising from disability (where a disabled person is treated unfavourably because of something that happens in consequence of their disability); and the extension of the duty on employers and suppliers of goods and services to make reasonable adjustments for disabled persons.

Under the Act, service providers have an anticipatory duty to make such adjustments. This means that where reasonable, they must identify and make the adjustments that disabled people might in future require in order to purchase or use their goods, facilities and services without being put at a substantial disadvantage compared to those that do not have a disability. This duty, which can ultimately be enforced in court, applies to the organisers of professional networking events in the same way as to other service providers.

More widely, the Government is fully committed to assisting disabled people access the labour market, for example through Access to Work. This is the Government’s scheme to fund practical support above and beyond the reasonable adjustments that an employer has a duty to make under the Equality Act 2010 for workers with a health condition or disability that affects the way they perform their job. Support is individually tailored and can include travel to work, support workers and specialist aids and equipment. The scheme is also open to self-employed disabled people.

Access to Work helped 36,470 individuals last year and the Spending Review provided for a real-terms increase in funding, starting in 2016/17, to enable the scheme to support an additional 25,000 people by the end of the Parliament.