The full text of the long-awaited Equality Bill, introduced into the House of Commons on 24 April 2009, is now available. The Bill states that it has two purposes: to harmonise discrimination law and to
strengthen the law to support progress on equality.
Assuming that it is enacted, the Bill will, among other things:
- define direct discrimination as less favourable treatment because of a protected characteristic: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation - this covers less favourable treatment because of an association with someone with the characteristic, or a wrongly held belief that the victim has the characteristic;
- provide a standard definition of indirect discrimination - with disability included as a protected characteristic;
- harmonise protection against harassment, so that it includes conduct related to a protected characteristic (so there is no need for the characteristic to be that of a particular person), and extend the protection against third-party harassment that currently applies only to sex-based harassment to include the other protected characteristics;
- render unenforceable any "secrecy clauses" preventing or restricting employees discussing pay with a view to finding out about differences connected to a protected characteristic, and designate any such discussion as a protected act for the purposes of victimisation;
- provide for a new power to make Regulations requiring employers with at least 250 employees to publish information about the differences in pay of male and female employees;
- in addition to the protection against direct and indirect disability discrimination, introduce a clause providing that it will be discriminatory to treat a disabled person in a particular way, which, because of his or her disability, amounts to treating the individual badly, where the treatment cannot be justified (the response to the House of Lords decision in London Borough of Lewisham v Malcolm [2008] IRLR 700 HL); and
- create a single equality duty for public authorities.
- Equality Bill The full text of the Bill is available on the Parliament website.
Also
Legal Q&A: the Equality Bill Richard Kenyon, head of employment, Field Fisher Waterhouse, examines the implications of the Equality Bill.
Disability and the Equality Bill Linda Goldman and Joan Lewis explain what the Equality Bill will mean for disability discrimination and occupational health. |
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