Guide to the Equality Bill – Part one
Four years after it was first promised by the Labour Government, the single Equality Bill was finally published at the end of April. Spanning 205 clauses and 28 schedules, the Bill, which subject to Parliamentary approval will receive Royal Assent in spring 2010, has two main purposes – to harmonise discrimination law, and to strengthen the law to support progress on equality. The Bill proposes the following main changes to the current framework of discrimination law:
consolidating the legislation outlawing discrimination in employment and standardising the approach to each form of discrimination
strengthening the law to ensure progress on equality (for example, extend the scope of indirect discrimination to cover disability, as well as introduce a new definition of discrimination arising from disability; extend positive action to allow employers, when choosing between two equally qualified candidates for recruitment or promotion, to select the successful candidate on the ground that they are from a disadvantaged or under-represented group; render pay confidentiality clauses in employment contracts unenforceable; and enable Ministers to require private sector employers with at least 250 employees to publish information about gender pay differences); and
create a new single public sector Equality Duty which will continue to cover race, gender, and disability, but will be extended to cover age, sexual orientation, religion or belief, pregnancy and maternity, and gender reassignment; while also introducing a new duty on public authorities to consider what action they can take to reduce the socio-economic inequalities people face.
In Part one of a two-part guide to the Bill,
IDS Diversity at Work focuses on the main general principles applicable to the discrimination strands. We will look at issues specific to protected characteristics such as disability, equal pay and maternity and pregnancy, as well as other measures such as the new public sector Equality Duty and the socio-economic duty, in Part two.