Published: 01 July 2008
Equality even in Old Age
Harriet Harman, Minister for Women & Equality, has announced new measures which will be in the Equality Bill, which will hopefully streamline & strengthen discrimination legislation, including banning age discrimination, to make Britain a fairer place.
Despite considerable progress, inequality and discrimination still exist:
- women are paid on average 12.6% less per hour than men
- disabled people are two and a half times more likely to be out of work
- ethnic minorities a fifth less likely to find work and
- two thirds of over-fifties feel that they are turned down for a job because they are too old
Framework for a Fairer Future - the Equality Bill outlines further steps to tackle this inequality, including:
End age discrimination
- The Equality Bill will include powers to ban all unjustified discrimination against older people, such as denying them medical treatment. Things that help older people, such as free bus passes, will still be allowed
- Public bodies will also have a new legal duty to eliminate age discrimination and promote equality
- There will be a transitional period to allow organisations time to adjust. Work is already underway, and the Government will consult on provisions to bring the new law into force more quickly in sectors, which are ready to comply
Increase transparency and ban 'gagging clauses'
Inequality cannot be tackled if it is hidden. Transparency is essential to eradicate discrimination:
- The Equality Bill will ban 'gagging clauses' so that work colleagues can compare wages and challenge employers who unlawfully pay them less. Nearly a quarter of employers ban their staff talking about their wages, with women more likely to be in the dark about colleagues' pay than men
- Public authorities will report on important inequalities like gender pay, disability employment and ethnic minority employment
- At the moment Employment Tribunals can only make judgments work for the individual who brought the case. The Bill will allow tribunals to make recommendations which will benefit everybody in the workforce and stop similar types of discrimination happening again
- The Equality and Human Rights Commission will conduct a series of inquiries in sectors where there is clear inequality, for example the gender pay gap in financial services is 41.5% compared with the national figure of 12.6%
- Businesses will be challenged through the development of an equality "kite-mark" to report on the gender pay gap in their organisation and their employment of disabled and ethnic minority staff
- The Government will work with the CBI and Unions to collect evidence on the effectiveness of equal pay job evaluation audits
The Government expects business increasingly to regard reporting on their progress on equality as an important part of explaining to investors and others the prospects for the company.
It will review progress on transparency and its contribution to the achievement of equality outcomes, and in light of this, consider over the next five years, using existing legislation for greater transparency in company reporting on equality.
Positive Action for women, and other under-represented groups
Employers will get the right to address under-representation, for example:
- Under-representation of ethnic minorities in the police
- Local authorities that want to promote more women to higher positions or to recruit more black, Asian and ethnic minority candidates. This will allow employers to take under-representation into account when deciding between two equally qualified candidates, and so allow workforces to better reflect society
- Recognised business benefits of a diverse workforce include attracting new business, understanding customers' needs, and filling skills gaps. This will be entirely permissive, rather than compulsory, and will help organisations such as police forces which want to increase the number of ethnic minority officers to better reflect the local community
New equality duty on the public sector
Public authorities already have a duty to consider how their spending decisions, employment practices and service delivery affect people whatever their race, disability or gender, which has created a positive culture change.
The Bill will replace this with a new streamlined and strengthened equality duty, which will also include age and sexual orientation.
This means that public bodies will need to consider how services affect a wide range of different people.
For example a library may provide IT training specifically for older people, or a police authority may provide an emergency mobile phone text service for deaf people.
Ms Harman said:
"Fairness is important for the rights of individuals, for our society to be peaceful and at ease with itself, and for our economy to be effective.
Equality is not just right in principle, but is necessary for Britain to be a modern and thriving economy; diversity makes us outward facing and helps us compete in the global economy."
The Equality Bill is intended to make it easier for people & businesses to know their rights and their obligations. It will be written in plain English and will replace nine major pieces of legislation and around 100 other measures, spanning forty years, from the 1970 Equal Pay Act through to the 2005 Disability Discrimination Act.
Bills that will be replaced:
- Equal Pay Act 1970
- Sex Discrimination Act 1975
- Race Relations Act 1976
- Disability Discrimination Act 1995
- Much of the Equality Act 2006
- Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003
- Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003
- Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006
- Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007 (all as subsequently amended)
At the current rate of progress it will be:
2085: Gender pay gap closes
2100: Black Asian and ethnic minority employment rate reflects population
2080: Parliament to have equal numbers of men and women MPs
Probably never: Disabled people get the same job prospects
A comprehensive paper on the content of the Equality Bill will be published later this summer, which will include the response to the Discrimination Law Review: A Framework for Fairness consultation.
The 'Blueprint for a Fairer Future - The Equality Bill' is expected to be introduced in the next Parliamentary session, which starts in December.
The details of the new age discrimination ban will be set out in secondary legislation made under the Equality Bill. The Government will set out a timetable for further public consultation.
Further information
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