Select committee: Women and Equalities Committee
Conclusion 2
Fourth report: Unequal impact? Coronavirus, disability and access to services: full Report
Published 22 Dec 2020
Paragraph 26
Addressed to Government Equalities Office
Women and Equalities Committee Unequal impact? Coronavirus, disability and access to services All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
The Government’s focus on people defined as “clinically extremely vulnerable” (CEV) to the virus, while rational from a medical perspective, was an inappropriate proxy for the need for support with access to food and had unintended consequences. It was rapidly established and broadly effective for those on the CEV list, for which everyone involved should be congratulated, but it also set one group of people with clinical needs against others with social barriers to food shopping during the pandemic. The Government’s predominant focus on supporting CEV people, and its clear direction to the food sector to prioritise them, may have contributed to some supermarkets overlooking their legal obligations to make reasonable adjustments for the broader population of disabled people, which has led to legal challenges.
From: Women and Equalities Committee, Fourth report: Unequal impact? Coronavirus, disability and access to services: full Report (HC 1050), paragraph 26, 22 December 2020
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 14 April 2021.
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government welcomes the Committee's report and sets out measures taken during the pandemic, while declining some recommendations and committing to publish the National Strategy for Disabled People in Spring 2021.
- On a statutory Code of Practice on the Public Sector Equality Duty, the government says it "does not see any compelling need to depart from the normal preference of its predecessors against additional statutory codes of practice".
- On publishing assessments of disabled people's food needs, it says that, "in line with the practice of successive administrations", it "does not routinely publish EIAs".
- On the SEND review, the Department for Education "intends to publish proposals for consultation in the spring of 2021", saying the pandemic "has unavoidably delayed" the review.
- On an independent inquiry and social care reform, it says there will be "opportunities to look back" at COVID-19 but is "focused entirely" on the response for now, and will "bring forward proposals this year" on adult social care.