The Government is clear that all service providers - including shops and supermarkets selling food - must at all times comply with the law and make reasonable adjustments for their disabled customers. In this context the duty is anticipatory, meaning that retailers should not wait to be asked, but should be planning for the fact that some of their customers will have mobility or breathing problems, for example, and have help and support ready for when this is needed. We welcome the opportunity to re-state this publicly. Defra has taken, and will continue to take, an active stance in promoting the EHRC’s guidance during the pandemic. For example, Defra worked closely with the EHRC and British Retail Consortium (BRC) about concerns raised by the EHRC. These were around retailers failing to uphold their duties under the Equality Act 2010 to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people under the exceptional circumstances caused by Covid-19, both in store and online. In light of the concerns raised, work was undertaken with the EHRC and BRC to look at what could be done in the context of social distancing and acute pressure on online delivery capacity. Defra continues to be a part of ongoing discussions with the retail sector through forums such as the fortnightly Retailer Forum. In September the EHRC published guidance for retailers. Defra facilitated a discussion with retailers ahead of guidance being published to assist retailers to meet their duties under the Equality Act 2010 during the Covid-19 pandemic. Conclusion and Recommendation 7: Without proper data, we cannot take action on the scale required and targeted at those in greatest need to tackle the causes and consequences of food insecurity. Data from charities indicate that many more people are food insecure as a result of the pandemic. The Food Security Report under the Agriculture Act due by the end of this year must contain up-to-date data on the scale of food insecurity, as well as the make- up of households that have food insecurity (for example, data that is broken down into age groups to assess the prevalence of food insecurity in households that contain children). We welcome the Government’s decision to reduce the maximum gap between these reports to three years from five. However, as the Minister said, there is nothing stopping it producing 6 Second Special Report of Session 2021–22 more regular reports. It should use that flexibility to produce annual reports, at least for the next few years while we understand the impact of the pandemic and also the impact of Brexit and other changes to the UK’s trading relationships. (Paragraph 32) Response: The Government agrees that robust official Government data is required to understand the full scope of the food security picture and support future policy decision making. The report, under the Agriculture Act, which will be published at the end of 2021, will provide a comprehensive analysis into a range of current issues relevant to food security. The key themes as set out in the Agriculture Act include Global Food Availability, Supply Sources for Food, the Resilience of the Supply Chain for Food, Household Expenditure on Food, and Food Safety and Consumer Confidence in Food. This section will include an assessment of food poverty in terms of economic and physical access to food, along with the ability to afford nutritious foods. Available data will be combined with case studies to demonstrate the impacts that Covid-19 has had on food poverty. The report is a major undertaking, drawing on evidence and trends from a wide range of sources. Many of these trends are slow-moving and do not change significantly year on year, but over a longer period of time. The Government agreed to reduce the frequency of the report from five to three years following debates in Parliament. Any period shorter than this would not allow for sufficient time to effectively analyse key trends from a variety of sources. The report is not the only source of evidence on food security and will draw on a range of regularly reported and publicly available statistics and data, many of which are produced annually. The Government routinely tracks such data to spot any unexpected changes and the Government intends to use such data to provide a deeper analysis to help identify long-term trends to support policy development in this area. In order to provide an analysis of the Covid-19 pandemic’s impacts on the UK’s food supply, the Government has also committed to publishing the first report before the end of 2021. Due to the nature of how these reports are produced and the forward-look attached to the analysis, it would be more appropriate to update the committee on progress for specific themes through other Parliamentary instruments, such as Written Ministerial Statements. Alongside this, the Government also introduced the internationally recognised food security questions to the annually produced DWP Family Resources Survey. The Famil