Mothers 'most discriminated against' group

A government-commissioned review has found that women with young children are the most discriminated against group at work.

The Commission for Equality and Human Rights (CEHR) report published on Wednesday found that a mother with a child aged under 11 is 45 per cent less likely to be employed than a man.

That is a worse record than disabled people or those from ethnic minorities.

The commission also concluded that most people are discriminated against in at least one form.

The prime minister asked for the research to be undertaken in 2005 as a way of providing a starting point for the newly formed CEHR, which includes the former equal opportunities, disabilities and racial equalities watchdogs, to begin its work.

And it immediately called on the government for a streamlining and simplification of anti-discrimination laws.

CEHR chairman Trevor Phillips said the report also showed the economic cost of discrimination.

"We say that equality is not a minority zone - the majority of the people in this country are women and disadvantaged," he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

"Most of us will be older, many of us will become disabled and even if we are not of one race or another we may have a mixed-race child.

"So these things concern us. The unemployment of women costs us about £28bn a year, the under-employment of disabled people about £9bn.

"So the essential point we are making here is that this is an issue for everybody."

Communities secretary Ruth Kelly welcomed the report but said: "No government has done more to help women in balancing work and family life".

"This review makes clear that further progress will not happen without government action - working with others, including communities and businesses, we must remain prepared to take the tough decisions needed," she said.

"That is why we must continue to invest in our schools, in reducing child poverty and in turning around our most deprived areas.

"And it is why in the coming year alone the new Commission for Equality and Human Rights will open for business, public authorities will be required for the first time to ask themselves how to promote greater gender equality, and discrimination on the grounds of religion and sexual orientation in the provision of goods and services will be outlawed.

"Trevor Phillip's report rightly challenges us to go further."