Question

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many responses to their consultation on caste in Great Britain and equality law were accepted after the closing date for submissions; and whether statistics on any responses accepted after the closing date will be declared separately.

Following the closure of the Government’s consultation on ‘Caste in Great Britain and Equality Law’ on 18 September 2017, we received 42 late responses in five separate postal mailings. This constituted 0.26% of the total number of responses received, and included responses from both those in favour of and those opposed to explicit legal protection against caste discrimination being included in the Equality Act 2010. Almost all late responses were campaign responses identical to others which had arrived on time.

Respondents had already had almost six months to reply to the consultation, and late responses were not taken into account in the Government’s analysis of the consultation’s results. The Government will be publishing this analysis and its response to the consultation in due course.