The Equality Bill 2009Mark Minns, 29 April 2009
The Government has now published the Equality Bill 2009. The Bill is designed to focus on two key areas: bringing together in one place all of the various strands of discrimination legislation; and strengthening the law in relation to equality.
In addition, the Government has published background information in A Fairer Future - The Equality Bill and other action to make equality a reality.
In the background information the Government lists a number of statistics as to why the Bill is so important. For example:
> Despite progress since 1997 to reduce the gender pay gap, women still earn, on average, 22.6% less per hour than men.
> The gap between the employment rate of disabled people and the overall employment rate has decreased from 34.5% to 26.3% since 1998, but disabled people are still more than twice as likely to be out of work than non-disabled people.
> If you are from an ethnic minority, you were 17.9% less likely to find work in 1997 than a white person. The difference is still 13%.
Please see the full background information document for the sources of these statistics.
In addition to bringing together existing discrimination legislation that covers topics such as race, sex, age, disability, sexual orientation and religion or belief, the Bill also seeks to deal with issues such as:
> Imposing a new duty on public authorities to consider reducing socio-economic inequalities;
Making use of public procurement processes to improve equality.
> Making age discrimination outside the workplace unlawful as well as in the workplace.
> Introducing gender pay reports.
> Strengthening the powers of employment tribunals by enabling them to make recommendations that an employer should take action, having lost a discrimination claim, to take steps that will prevent other employees being disadvantaged.
> Protecting carers from discrimination.
> Introducing a prohibition on clauses in employment contracts which seek to prevent employees from discussing their pay with their colleagues.
> Strengthening protection from discrimination for disabled people.
The expectation is that the Bill will be in force from Autumn 2010. |
