We have submitted evidence to the Women and Equalities Committee’s inquiry on Equality at work: Flexible working and disability.
In our response, we highlighted that:
- The Equality Act (2010) protects people with certain characteristics, including disability, against discrimination.
- However, ‘addiction to alcohol’ is excluded from the definition of disability in the Act. In 2021, the Government Equalities Office justified the exclusion of alcohol dependence on the basis that it is ‘self-induced’.
- Removing this deliberate exclusion would help to reduce stigma and discrimination associated with alcohol harm, including in the workplace.
- Three quarters of a citizen’s jury which deliberated and discussed the exclusion agreed that alcohol dependence should not be excluded from the protections of the Equality Act.
