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.