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<p>In January 2022, the High Court declared that the Strategy 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</p><p>We
strongly disagree with the finding and the Work and Pensions Secretary of State has
sought permission to appeal the High Court’s declaration. We are awaiting the Court
of Appeal’s decision on whether permission to appeal is granted.</p><p>To comply with
the High Court’s declaration pending the outcome of the appeal, the Government has
paused the delivery, implementation and communication of some policies, activities,
and actions that are contained in the Strategy. The Work and Pensions Secretary of
State wishes to minimise the risk of acting inconsistently with the declaration. This
means that out of over 100 policies in the strategy, we have paused 14. A full list
of these policies is as follows:</p><p> </p><ul><li>BEIS will publish proposals to
ensure that every disabled person who wants to start a business has the opportunity
to do so.</li><li>BEIS and the Cabinet Office will set up an Extra Costs Taskforce,
bringing together disabled people, regulators and businesses, to better understand
the extra costs faced by disabled people, including how this breaks down for different
impairments - by summer 2022.</li><li>DWP will work with the Disability Confident
Professional Advisers Group (PAG) and the Business Leaders Group this year to review
and strengthen levels 2 and 3 of the scheme, to support employers to increase disabled
people’s employment opportunities.</li><li>DCMS will build the evidence base about
the nature and scale of the inaccessibility of private sector websites, and explore
how the government can effectively intervene including possible legislative options.</li><li>MOD
will explore how to increase opportunities for disabled people to serve as part of
the Armed Forces reserves by the end of 2023, including guaranteeing interviews for
disabled reservists who meet the minimum requirements when recruiting for those roles.</li><li>DHSC
will establish a new disability data working group in 2021 to look at health and social
care datasets and address priority areas where there are gaps in the data.</li><li>DU
will publish an annual report which summarises the progress we have made in implementing
the strategy.</li><li>DU will oversee the implementation of the 5 elements featured
in the strategy and report on progress.</li><li>By summer 2022 the Disability Unit
will publish, following engagement with disabled people, a set of indicators and a
dashboard to track the impact of the National Disability Strategy.</li><li>DU will
review the way the UK government engages with disabled people, in discussion with
disabled people, disabled people’s organisations and charities.</li><li>The Disability
Unit will invest up to £1 million in 2021 to 2022 to develop a new Centre for Assistive
and Accessible Technology, reporting on progress by summer 2022.</li><li>Cabinet Office
will consult on workforce reporting on disability for large employers, exploring voluntary
and mandated workplace transparency, and publish a set of next steps.</li><li>Cabinet
Office will appoint a Disability Crown Representative to help unlock the innovation
and economic benefits of disability inclusion through the government’s commercial
activities.</li><li>Cabinet Office will consider how we can best support those standing
for public office and those who hold public office.</li></ul><p> </p><p>I will set
out further detail in a letter and I will place a copy in the House library.</p><p><strong>
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