| Legal updates | New era for equality legislation moves closer

New era for equality legislation moves closer

01 July 2008

The Government published details of the new Equality Bill in a White Paper, called “Framework for a Fairer Future - The Equality Bill” on 26 June. The Bill is expected to be introduced into Parliament in November.

There are currently over 100 pieces of discrimination legislation dating back over more than 40 years. The new Bill is intended to “declutter” the current law by consolidating all the UK's existing discrimination and equal pay legislation into one Act. This will be written in plain English to aid understanding.

The Bill will also introduce the following changes: 

• Age discrimination laws will be extended to the provision of goods, services and facilities. There will be a transitional period before this change is introduced and it will be possible to justify different treatment for different age groups in certain circumstances. 
• Public authorities are currently required to promote equality for race, disability and gender. These separate duties will be combined and extend to create a new public sector equality duty which also includes age, sexual orientation, religion or belied and gender reassignment. 
• Public sector bodies will be required to consider this new equality duty when carrying out their procurement functions. The public sector spends £160 billion every year on purchasing goods and services from the private sector and 30% of British companies are contracted by the public sector. This is likely to require greater transparency from companies for example, in disclosing how many of their staff are from ethnic minority groups. 
• The current ability for employers to take “positive action” (as opposed to positively discriminating) will be extended so that when selecting between two equally qualified candidates an employer will be able to take under-representation of certain groups in its workforce into account. 
• Pay secrecy clauses in employment contracts which seek to prevent employees from discussing their pay will become unlawful (in an attempt to reduce the gender pay gap). 
• The Equality and Human Rights Commission will begin a series of inquiries into inequality in the private sector starting this year with the financial services and construction sectors. 
• A new equality “kite-mark” will be introduced for businesses so that they can advertise their equality credentials. 
• Employment tribunals will be given new powers to make recommendations in discrimination claims, so that these can apply to the whole workforce and not just the successful claimant. Such recommendations might include implementing an equal opportunities policy or reviewing pay policies.

Further information is expected to be published shortly setting out additional detail on the Equality Bill's content.

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Related links

• Equality Bill white paper
• Employment law advice

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