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Parental Responsibility

Volume 481: debated on Monday 20 October 2008

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what assessment he has made of the implications of the Coleman judgement on the status of parents with a disabled child. (226690)

I have been asked to reply.

In its judgment in Coleman v. Attridge Law, the European Court of Justice decided that the European Framework Employment Directive, which concerns equal treatment in employment and occupation, provides protection from direct discrimination or harassment that arises from a person's association with a disabled person. This means that parents of a disabled child, like other associates of a disabled person, are protected by the directive from direct discrimination or harassment on the grounds of their child's disability. The Government are giving careful consideration to this judgment and its implications for domestic anti-discrimination legislation.