Accessibility statement – UK Parliament

This statement applies to content published within the UK Parliament microsites and subdomains (for example, https://housesofparliament.tal.net/candidate).

Our domains are owned by UK Parliament.

We aim to make our websites accessible to the widest possible audience. This means, for example, that you should be able to:

• change colours, contrast levels and fonts
• zoom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen
• navigate most of our websites using a keyboard
• navigate most of our websites using speech recognition software
• listen to most of our websites using a screen reader

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have additional access needs.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

To make UK Parliament websites accessible, we:

• integrate accessibility into our procurement procedures
• provide accessibility training for our staff
• include individuals with disabilities in our design personas

How accessible are our websites?

Parts of our websites are not fully accessible. For example, we’ve found the following issues on some of our websites:

• some header structure and page IDs are not optimised for screen reader use
• some images lack alternative text and some images are used as links
• broken links
• missing or unclear page descriptions
• missing labels in form fields
• non-accessible pdfs
• non-optimal image types

How to request content in an accessible format

If you need information in a different format please email us at webmaster@parliament.uk and tell us:

• the web address (URL) of the content that you need
• your contact name and email address
• the type of format you need

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

If you find any problems that are not listed on this page or if you think we’re not meeting the accessibility requirements, email us at webmaster@parliament.uk to report this.

Enforcement procedure

If you contact us with a complaint and you’re not happy with our response contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (the ‘accessibility regulations’).

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

UK Parliament is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

Compliance status

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances and exemptions listed below.

Non-accessible content

The content listed below is non-accessible, for the following reasons.

• some header structure and page IDs are not optimised for screen reader use
• there is a lack of alternative text on some images and some images are used as links
• missing or unclear page descriptions
• missing labels in some form fields

We’ve prioritised our websites based on analytics and data. We’re working with our content and development teams to identify the above instances, where these issues exist & how to fix them.

Disproportionate Burden

The following has been identified as Disproportionate Burden for 2020 and will be reviewed yearly.

• adding subtitles to existing media created before 2018
• adding accessibility features to existing interactive media created before 2018
• identified low traffic micro sites and content, due to the prioritisation of key content across our sites
• committee written evidence submissions from the public. Efforts will be made to ensure that these pdfs are made as accessible as possible via automated means. HTML versions of the evidence are also present on the site
• updating some pdfs created after 2018, this being an ongoing project based on access metrics and internal content prioritisation. This is due to the very large amount of pdfs we’ve published

In preparation for September 2020, the House of Commons Library developed a range of new publication templates to ensure that all publications published in pdf format will be accessible. These templates are in their final round of testing and are due to be adopted by November 2020. The Library are also identifying their most relevant content from 2018-2020 and will update it to meet these standards. This is due to the volume of pdfs that produced in this period and the assessment of their current accessibility levels.

Some pdfs published on our sites between 2018 and September 2020 are not fully accessible. This is because fixing such a large number of documents by September 2020 placed a disproportionate burden on our teams. We’re fixing these documents in priority order to make sure that our most frequently used and needed documents are made accessible first. After that we’re fixing our less frequently used documents until all our pdfs are made accessible.

Historical web archives

We’ve assessed the cost of fixing these issues with subtitles, interactive media and our low traffic sites. We believe that doing so now would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations. We’ll review our assessment annually.

PDFs and other documents

Many of our existing pdfs and Word and other Office file format documents are essential to providing our services.

The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix pdfs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services.

We’re in the process of updating our pdf library to fix our three most common accessibility fails listed below.

• tab Order Not Specified
• language Not Set
• title Not Set

Any new pdf, HTML or Office file format documents we publish will aim to meet accessibility standards.

Live video

We do not plan to add captions to live video streams where these are exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

We intend to identify and implement new technologies that would make this possible, when technology evolves.

How we tested this website

Our websites were and are currently being tested for compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines V2.1 level A and level AA using a combination of automated tools for accessibility WCAG 2.0 standards.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 13 August 2020.

This website is being tested via a combination of accessibility tools throughout August 2020. The testing is being carried out by Parliament UK.

Our sites are checked for accessibility on a regular basis. These tests are carried out by Parliament UK through automated testing via a combination of tools for accessibility.