The People Bulletin

The Equality Bill was published on 24 April 2009 and has just had its second reading on 11 May. It was introduced by Harriet Harman of the Government Equalities Office and it remains to be seen what final form the Equality Act will eventually take. The bill’s purpose is to combine all of the existing legislation on discrimination into one single statute. Daniel Barnett, an employment law barrister at 1 Temple Gardens provided the following useful summary of the bill’s key features, explaining the bill:

1. allows positive discrimination during recruitment in favour of disadvantaged groups when faced with candidates who are otherwise equally qualified;
2. reverses Malcolm v London Borough of Lewisham, and abolishes the list of areas in which a disability must impact (e.g. mobility, manual dexterity, memory or ability to learn, concentrate or understand etc.);
3. contains a clause allowing the Secretary of State to order employers with more than 250 employees to publish information about disparities in pay between male and female employees – although apparently the government has announced that this power will not be exercised in the next four years;
4. outlaws any clauses in employment contracts which impose a secrecy obligation stopping employees discussing their pay packages;
5. introduces a new duty for some key public bodies to pay due regard to socio-economic disadvantage in making strategic decisions, and extends public sector duties to ensure equality to age discrimination; and
6. gives effect to recent European case law by outlawing discrimination by association

The full text of the bill can be viewed on the Bills and Legislation section of the Parliament UK website:

http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2008-09/equality.html