Background to the Bill
· The Bill will establish a single Commission for Equality and Human Rights (CEHR), replacing the three existing equality bodies – the Commission for Racial Equality, the Disability Rights Commission and the Equal Opportunities Commission – with one that prevents discrimination on the grounds of age, religion and beliefs, and sexual orientation throughout British society
· The Bill aims to introduce a “gender duty” on public authorities requiring them to promote equality of opportunity between men and women. Furthermore, the Bill proposes extending the “prohibition of sex discrimination to cover to cover all public functions in line with the Race Relations Act and the Disability Discrimination Act.”
· The government wants to outlaw discrimination in the provision of goods and services on the grounds of religion or belief. Discrimination on the grounds of race or disability is already provided for in previous Acts.
Stakeholder Responses
Disability Rights Commission
- The Disability Rights Commission warmly welcomes the Equality Bill which establishes a Commission for Equality and Human Rights (CEHR). It marks a new approach to equality and human rights which we believe has great potential to transform the life chances of disabled people and other marginalised groups in our society
- We particularly welcome the distinctive governance and organisational arrangements for the delivery of disability rights which are vital to disabled people’s confidence in the CEHR. However the review of the Disability Committee must be genuinely open-ended and the Bill should explicitly require consultation with disabled people over its future
- We believe the CEHR should be able to enforce disabled people’s human rights not just talk about them
- CEHR needs to promote independent living for disabled people and we seek assurances on this from ministers
- Disability should be included in the mainstream good relations duties of the CEHR for maximum impact.
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Equal Opportunities Commission
- The EOC strongly welcomes the Equality Bill, which will establish a new Commission for Equality and Human Rights (CEHR)
- The Equality Bill includes a duty on public bodies to promote gender equality. This is an essential part of the future legislative framework and is the biggest change in sex equality law for 30 years. A race duty already exists in the Race Relations Amendment Act and a disability duty is included in the Disability Discrimination Act, recently passed by parliament
- We also welcome the inclusion of measures in the bill which will outlaw discrimination in goods, facilities and services on grounds of religion or belief. But we regret that the bill does not include provision to extend goods, facilities and services protection on grounds of sexual orientation or age nor to transgendered people
- We urge the government to address the patchwork of equality law provision very soon after the conclusion of its equality and equality law reviews, due for completion in summer 2006 and introduce a Single Equality Act as soon as possible after the conclusion of that review.
Where the EOC has concerns:
- We would like to see the elimination of harassment included in the gender duty.
- We would like the government to confirm that the gender duty will require public sector bodies to address the causes of the gender pay gap, including unlawful pay discrimination.
- We would like to see transsexual and transgendered people explicitly covered by the gender duty.
- We are concerned that Section 73 of the Sex Discrimination Act (SDA) has no equivalent power in the Bill.
- We are concerned that the review of equality law should be co-ordinated with the establishment of the new Commission so that they can be mutually beneficial.
- We believe that a budget of £70 million currently allocated to the new Commission is insufficient for it to meet all the demands that will be placed upon it, given its additional remit.
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Help the Aged
Warmly welcomes the publication of the Equality Bill. The Commission for Equality and Human Rights (CEHR) is extremely important as a first step on the road to equality for older people.
Discrimination and prejudice are the major barriers to full participation in society by older people, both as workers and learners, and as citizens and members of their communities.
There are four key areas on which we want to see progress during the passage of the Equality Bill. These are:
- Adequate resources and expertise for the CEHR to enable it to tackle age discrimination
- A ban on age discrimination in the provision of goods, facilities and services
- A positive duty on public bodies to promote age equality
- Closing the loophole which means that older people receiving care from private or voluntary sector organisations are not protected by the human rights act
We have worked closely with colleagues across the age sector, those representing the various “strands” of equality and with the government through the various stages of consultation in development of this Bill.
We believe there is widespread support for the vision set out for the new commission and great potential to improve the lives of the diversity of older people through its work.
We hope that there will be a firm cross-party consensus in support of the Bill and in support of progressing the age equality issues raised in this paper.
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Association of Retired and Persons Over 50
The Association of Retired and Persons Over 50 is in full accord with other organisations working in this field, in welcoming the Equality Bill and the Commission for Equality and Human Rights which it will establish.
Our fear is that this new Bill and the related Commission will, in the event, represent a lost opportunity.
· At the heart of the Bill is an anomaly which cannot be ignored, in that a bill which purports to eliminate discrimination will actually introduce inequalities between the different groups represented. For example, the inclusion of goods and services applies to Gender, Race and Disability but is denied to Age, and unlike other groups, there is no obligation upon public bodies to promote age equality.
· We see no indication that the Government intends to back its rhetoric on age discrimination with sufficient resources to make a difference.
· There appears to have been no consideration of what the Human Rights element of the legislation will mean for older people. Such rights are ignored or abused more in the provision (or non-provision) of goods and services than any other element – yet they are excluded.
· In its recently published Regulations on discrimination in the workplace, the Government gives more space to ‘ Justifying Age Discrimination’ than any other topic. What assurances will be given to ensure that promises made to the older generation will not again be surrounded by evasion and get out clauses?
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