Working your way through the new Equality Bill

I’m sure you will be aware of the new Equality Bill making its progress through Parliament at the moment, and that this is an important new piece of legislation that will affect us all as Equality and Diversity Practitioners and Investigators, but I know I am not as aware as I should be of all it contains.  I have found a source of advice, so I pass this on in the hope that it may help the busy practitioner.

First, some background.  Having been introduced to the House of Commons in April 2009, the Equality Bill passed through the Committee and Report Stages, and was passed by the House of Commons on 2 December.  Straight on to the House of Lords, the Bill is now in its Committee Stage.  According to Michael Rubenstein in Equal Opportunities Review^[1] ”it is clear that the Bill is being accelerated, making it much more likely that it will be enacted before the General Election.  The current plan is for Royal Assent to be in April.”  Some elements of the law are planned to come into force as early as October 2010.

No doubt with this timetable in mind, The Equality and Human Rights Commission (ECHR) has recently opened and launched a consultation of its Draft Employment Statutory Code of Practice.

For Equality and Diversity practitioners in general, and for Investigators in particular, the Bill will introduce a number of welcome changes.  In place of (almost) all of the separate pieces of anti-discrimination legislation that have built up over the decades, we will have a single Act that has a harmonised approach to all the different provisions.

What joy!  Common concepts and definitions!  Well, very largely anyway.  As the ECHR says, “An important purpose of [the Bill] is to create a single approach to discrimination against people with different protected characteristics, where this is appropriate.  However there are some important differences in the way that discrimination is defined, particularly for disability”.  So the Bill aims to harmonise and simplify the existing equality laws, and it simplifies and standardises definitions, tests and exceptions; but some specific differences in approach remain for particular ‘protected characteristics’.

The Consultation on the Draft Employment Statutory Code is a useful resource because it sets out the guidance that courts and tribunals will use to interpret the law.  The Draft Code states its main purpose is “to provide a detailed explanation of the Act and to apply legal concepts in the Act to everyday work-related situations”.  Helpfully it includes numerous examples that set out the effect of the new legislation in practical ways.

While Chapter 2 of the Draft Code explains each of the protected characteristics^[2], of particular importance to investigators is Chapter 3.  This provides the definitions and explains ‘prohibited conduct’ i.e. direct and indirect discrimination, harassment and victimisation.  Of particular note is the new concept of combined discrimination, where less favourable treatment is because of (the new phrase that replaces ‘on grounds of’) a combination of two protected characteristics, such as a person who is a gay Christian or a black woman.

For ease of reference, the explanations of direct discrimination start at page 38 of the Draft Code, indirect discrimination starts at page 75, Harassment at page 107, and Victimisation at page 116.  It is packed with helpful examples.

So, go on, why not take the plunge and start to get to know the concepts in the new legislation by dipping into the Draft Code.  This is a new framework we will all soon have to become familiar with, if we are not already.

[1] Issue 196 January 2010

[2] The following characteristics are ‘protected characteristics’ under the Act: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.