Hands off the Equality Act

Story published on Women's Views on News, December 17, 2012

Reducing red tape is no excuse for attacking women’s rights

In 2010 the Government introduced the Equality Act, bringing together laws like the Disability Discrimination, Race and Sex Discrimination Acts.

A year later, David Cameron announced that the Act would be the target of the Red Tape Challenge, a cabinet Office initiative aimed at cutting unnecessary regulation,

Members of the public, businesses and industry experts were invited to scrutinise the Equality Act and put forward recommendations for regulations which could be simplified, scrapped or clarified.

Last spring Home Secretary Theresa May announced that, as a result of the consultation, it would scrap the Third Party Harassment law which means employers will no longer be liable if a worker is harassed by a third party such as a customer.

Public bodies would not have to consider the impact of their decisions on social class, and employment tribunals would no longer be able to recommend employers make changes to policies covering all staff when an employee successfully brought a discrimination case against them.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) had its remit curtailed and its budget halved.

May also announced a review of the Public Sector Equality Duty which requires all public bodies to eliminate unlawful discrimination, advance equal opportunities and foster good relations between different parts of the community regardless of race, gender sexuality or religion.

Last Month Equality Minister Marian Miller announced the steering group and Terms of Reference for the review. 

The steering group will have just four months to gather evidence, reach its conclusions and write its report.  It can recommend the scrapping or amendment of parts of the duty if it feels they are too costly to administer.

The Fawcett Society is extremely concerned about this and said cutting red tape should not be at the expense of women’s equality.

“The Equality Act is an extremely important piece of law that brings together all preexisting equality law, including all the provisions enshrined in The Equal Pay Act 1970 and the Sex Discrimination Act 1975.

“Without this law, public bodies would have no duty to consider how to eliminate unlawful discrimination, including between women and men, and women would not be legally protected from unequal treatment in the workplace”, it said in a statement.

Fawcett and other organizations representing groups protected by the Act, are urging the public to visit the Red Tape Challenge website to register their comments in support of the Equality Act.

Because, as Fawcett says - any backwards step - let alone the repeal of this Act, would represent a transgression on the rights of women in the UK today and would severely undermine efforts to achieve equality between women and men in all spheres of life. 

What the UK census says about women

Story published on Women's Views on News, December 19, 2012

The latest data shows England and Wales turning away from marriage, but women still working less

Most of the tables in the latest census release are not broken down by gender, so we will have to wait to see what these figures really tell us about our changing roles.

But according to figures released on 11 December people living in England and Wales are rejecting traditional values like marriage and religion. 

The proportion of people with no religious affiliation rose from 15 to 25 per cent. 

And the proportion of households containing a married couple or same sex civil partnership fell from 37 to 33 per cent.  The percentage of households containing a cohabiting couple increased from 8 to 10 per cent.

We also seem more prepared to live with people from different ethnic backgrounds.  Twelve per cent of households now contain people with more than one ethnicity, up from 9 per cent in 2001.

The proportion of those providing unpaid care to friends or relatives has remained the same as in 2001 at 10 per cent.  This is welcome as the majority of unpaid carers are women.

But despite some evidence of changing social attitudes, women continue to work fewer hours than men and are less likely to own their own businesses. 

A third of women work part-time, compared with 8 per cent of men, and only 9 per cent are self-employed, compared with a fifth of men.

Women are more likely to be studying full time however, 5.7 per cent of women are students, compared with 4.3 per cent of men.

There are over a million more women than men registered for the UK census, 28.5m women compared to 27.6m men.

While the main explanation for this is that women live longer, Prof Jane Falkingham, director of the Centre for Population Change told the BBC fewer women chose to or have the opportunity to live and work abroad.

But there may be a more administrative explanation. “Men are not good form-fillers,” she said.

Autumn Statement bad news for women

And research shows 81 per cent of benefit and tax credit cuts come from women.

In his Autumn Statement on 5 December the Chancellor George Osborne announced cuts to benefits, tax credits and tax changes which will save the Treasury £1.06bn.

But according to research, commissioned by Shadow Equalities Minister Yvette Cooper, 81 per cent of these savings, or £867 million, will come from women.

Anne Longfield, chief executive of 4Children explained: "What seems to be happening is there's a transference of targeting – from benefits which had gone primarily to women with children, to targeting personal allowance changes which are for everyone."

So whilst most working people will welcome the extra £235 a year from an increase in their basic tax allowance, Working and Child Tax Credits, Child Benefit, Statutory Maternity and

Adoption pay, housing benefit and out of work benefits like Jobseekers Allowance will only increase be 1 per cent a year from April 2013, a real-terms cut of 1.7 - 2.2 per cent a year, if inflation remains at current levels.

Gllian Guy, chief executive of Citizen's Advice said: “The government can’t keep hitting the same people over and over again.

“Let’s not forget, below inflation benefit increases will not just hit people who are out of work. It will also hurt working families in low paid jobs who have already been hit by wage freezes and cuts in working hours.”

And as WVoN reported last week, a report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that most working age people in poverty are now in work, rather than unemployed.

Geri Goddard, Chief Executive of the Fawcett Society, said women had already paid for two thirds of the changes to taxes and welfare since 2010, and women’s unemployment was at a 24-year high.

“The various policies unveiled in the name of growth offer little to support women's greater participation in the labour market or wider economy.

“While further investment in roads and other big infrastructure projects is welcome, few of the 1.01 million unemployed women will find jobs as a result.

She added: “Women will continue to act as shock absorbers for the cuts.

“It’s vital the forthcoming Spending Review considers the differing impact these measures will have on women and men.

“In particular government will need to go further than just a household income level impact analysis if they are to gauge the likely impact of their policies on every day women's lives in any meaningful way.

"At the same time, keeping public sector pay rises at below inflation levels – a real terms pay cut – will also affect women disproportionately, as they make up the bulk of the public sector workforce.

Cooper believes that this has come about because there are now so few women at the top of government.

"This is the problem with having so few women in the cabinet, nobody asks the question," she said.

Story published on Womens Views on News, December 7, 2012

Working households in poverty says report

Story published in Women's Views on News, December 3, 2012

A new report finds that the nature of poverty in the UK is changing.

And most working-age households affected by poverty are in work rather than unemployed, with low income (or poverty) defined as ‘people living in households with income below 60 per cent of the median for that year’.

For the tax year ending 5 April 2012, the median gross annual earnings for men were £28,700, and for women were £23,100.

According to the report, ’Monitoring Poverty and Social Exclusion 2012′, written by the New Policy Institute for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation there are now 6.1 million people living on less than two thirds of the average wage – on around £8,400 a year.
And around 6.4 million workers are under-employed – wanting to work more but unable to obtain extra hours.

According to the Office for National Statistics, part-time workers are four times more likely to be those under-employed.

Just under one fifth of people in Britain are on low incomes at any one time, but poverty affects a third at some time in a four-year period.

Over half of the children living in poverty now live in working households.

And poverty is no longer confined to those living in social housing: most poor people live in the private rented sector.

The government’s welfare reforms are worsening their plight, as they are cutting things like tax credits and housing benefits, which the working poor need to supplement low wages and meet rising housing costs.

And these trends are more likely to affect women. Women living in the most deprived areas can now expect to live shorter lives than men in the richest parts of the UK.

The report concludes that ’changing the benefits system will not solve problems such as in-work poverty, increasing underemployment and rising health inequalities’.

According to a recent TUC study, three quarters of the UK’s over 8 million part-time workers are women and they earn 36 per cent less per hour than full-time workers.

The regional earnings distribution figures released recently by the Office for National Statistics showed how wages in the UK differed by sex.
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While weekly earnings were highest in London for both sexes, earnings for men were lowest in Northern Ireland, at £479, and for women they were lowest in the East Midlands, at £402.