The temporary Coronavirus Act provisions considered in this interim report have the potential to substantially restrict or curtail important, hard-won rights that disabled people rely on for their quality of life. They must not remain available in statute for any longer than is strictly necessary. They must not become new norms, setting back disabled people’s rights by many years.
The primary aim of this interim report is to inform Members of Parliament ahead of the first six-monthly parliamentary review of the Coronavirus Act’s temporary provisions. Here, MPs will get the chance to debate the provisions and decide whether or not they should be continued. We consider the statutory arrangements for six-monthly reviews,
which prescribe a vote on a binary “take all or leave all” motion, unsatisfactory. The Government should make arrangements to test, separately from the statutory vote, the view of MPs on the merits of continuing different, individual provisions, including those considered here, which have clear and obvious implications for disabled people’s
equality.