Equality Bill

The purpose of this new clause is to put protection based on association or perception into the Bill. The full protection against discrimination which the Bill offers can then be as widely known to all users, or potential users—such as employers, employees, service providers, service users and public authorities—as possible. The Explanatory Notes make very clear that protection against discrimination and harassment includes protection based on the person’s association with a person with a protected characteristic—for example, as the spouse, friend, child, parent or lover of a person who has a protected characteristic—or on association by the person’s actions by, for example, campaigning for rights related to a particular characteristic or refusing to discriminate against people who have a particular characteristic. The notes also make clear that protection applies where a person is discriminated against or harassed because they are perceived to have a particular protected characteristic where such perception is false—for instance, a Sikh man subjected to Islamphobic abuse. That this protection should apply to association has already been clarified by the European Court of Justice in the recent case of Coleman v Attridge Law, in which the parent and full-time carer of a disabled child was discriminated against and harassed because of her association with the protected characteristic of disability. Earlier case law in the UK courts under the Race Relations Act 1976 had established this principle for racial grounds. In looking at association it has been well established under the Race Relations Act 1976, for 25 years or more, that a person can bring a complaint of race discrimination if they are treated less favourably because of their association with a person of a particular race—for example, where a white person with black friends is not admitted to a club, and the reason that the white person is excluded is because he or she is with them. The reason is race, even though not his or her race. That is the same type of situation as being associated with disability for the carer of a disabled child in the Coleman v Attridge Law case. In two other reported cases, Showboat Entertainment Centre v Owen and Weathersfield v Sargent, association with the ground of race was extended to apply to white employees who were dismissed when they refused their employer's instructions to discriminate on racial grounds. The courts were satisfied that the reason for the dismissal was race. It has been understood for many years that the Race Relations Act also covers situations where a person was wrongly perceived to belong to a particular racial group and, based on that perception, was treated less favourably. For instance, the abusive reference "Paki", if intended to refer to people of Pakistani origin, is often used against any one of south Asian origin in the course of harassment or discrimination against "Pakis". The new clause does not introduce anything in terms of the law; it would merely ensure that any person reading the Bill would know that those aspects of protection against discrimination were part of the law. The amendment is aimed at helping to facilitate the streamlining of the law and making it clearer and more accessible for everyone. I beg to move.