Mr. Liam Herrick:

The third point was around housing. In our report, we talk about the principles of universal design and the concern we have about the proportion of local authority housing that is accessible. We know this is a live question now about standards for local authority housing. It is a particular issue in this city but more generally as well. There is a stark question there about our compliance with the UNCRPD if local authority housing is being developed which is not accessible. This goes to a wider question about independent living and people having a meaningful choice about where they live and with whom they live. We would be concerned about the direction of travel on that specific question.

On the question of education, we made the point earlier that we would be very concerned if there is any dilution of the assessment of need. The difficulty is not the assessment of need but the lack of investment of resources and the lack of an enforceable right of access to services once they have been identified. We recognise there is a significant backlog at present, but this needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency with the appropriate investment of resources in our view.