The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Tom Pursglove)
In January 2022, the High Court declared that the National Disability Strategy was unlawful. This was because the UK Disability Survey, which was used to inform it, was held to be a voluntary consultation that failed to comply with the legal requirements— “Gunning Principles”—on public consultations. The Government were granted permission to appeal this judgment and the appeal hearing was held on Wednesday 28 June 2023. The Court of Appeal handed down its judgment at 11 am yesterday, 11 July 2023.
I am pleased to inform the House that the Court of Appeal found in favour of the Government. This means that both the UK Disability Survey and the National Disability Strategy have now been found to be lawful by the Court of Appeal, and we are able to continue with the important work of implementing this long-term strategy to transform disabled people’s everyday lives for the better.
We need to take stock of what this decision means for individual National Disability Strategy commitments and evaluate how best to move forward. I will provide a further update in September to set out our next steps in more detail.
The Government will also continue to move forward with our planned consultation on the Disability Action Plan over the summer. The Disability Action Plan and the National Disability Strategy were always intended to be complementary, with the former focusing on concrete, short-term actions deliverable in 2023-24 to improve disabled people’s lives, and the latter setting out our longer-term vision, and I am delighted that we are now able to make progress on both of them.
I have consistently heard from disabled people themselves, and from disability stakeholders, that they want to see action on the important commitments set out in the National Disability Strategy. I am pleased that we are now able to move forward again with this ambitious agenda, and I look forward to working with colleagues across the House to drive joined-up, effective action across Government, which will truly transform disabled people’s lives for the better.
[HCWS930]