Equality Bill likely to become law

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The Equality Bill, included as carry-over legislation from the previous session, is one of the bills announced in today's Queen's Speech that is most likely to become law.

The session is only expected to last until early April, and the general election has to be called by June.

Not all of the legislative programme announced today will make it through the parliamentary process in time to get on the statute book.

The Equality Bill has already had its second reading and committee stages in the Commons and is waiting for its report stage on the floor of the House.

A carry-over motion was moved on May 13 for this Bill, which allows for any proceedings not completed to be resumed in the next session.

It aims to harmonise and extend existing discrimination law covering the 'protected characteristics' of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation.

It provides powers to extend age discrimination protection outside the workplace and extends protection from discrimination on the grounds of gender reassignment to school pupils

It will also create a unified public sector duty, intended to promote equality in public policy and decision-making, existing provisions being extended to the protected characteristics of sexual orientation, age and religion or belief.

The Equality Bill proposes a new public sector duty related to socio-economic inequalities.

One of the more controversial proposals include legislation requiring that employers review gender pay differences within their organisations and publish the results

It also extends the period for which all-women shortlists may be used for parliamentary and other elections until 2030 and allows parties to reserve places on shortlists of candidates for people on the grounds of race or disability.

The Local Government Association said it supports the introduction of the general public equality duty.

"The existing race, gender and disability duties are all different and impose different obligations with different time scales," a spokesperson said.

"Creating one extended generic duty could help to reduce red tape and minimise unnecessary burdens.

"While there are genuine differences of political opinion within local government regarding the need for a socio-economic duty, all parties agree that providing services and support for the most vulnerable in our society is a primary role of local government."

The Chartered Management Institute said the legislation would help employers.

"It is clear that the glass ceiling for women remains in place," a CMI spokesperson told ePolitix.com.

"The evidence suggests that employers may be mistaking equal pay rises for equal pay but if the focus remains on yearly increases, the arrival of pay parity will never occur.

"Nearly half of employers report that they have lost staff due to poor salaries so there is a real danger that employers will suffer a brain drain if they fail to treat talented staff fairly.”

The British Humanist Association said it is "generally supportive" of the Equality Bill.

"From our perspective there are some key amendments to be made so that unjust discrimination by religious organisations against non-religious people, or those of the "wrong" religion can be tackled in public services, education and elsewhere," a spokesman said.

"The new public sector equality duty that extends to 'religion or belief' is especially concerning as it could lead to increased discrimination and segregation between religious and non-religious people."

The Royal National Institute of Blind People said the Equality Bill presents a number of "potential regressions in the protection from discrimination currently afforded by the Disability Discrimination Act".

"We are concerned by the proposals government published on a single Equality Duty and will continue to work to ensure that the transformative nature of the Disability Equality Duty is retained within future arrangements, to drive forward focus on accessibility and inclusion within public bodies' delivery agendas," an RNIB spokesman told ePolitix.com.