Equality Bill

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Ouseley offers his apologies for not being able to attend this evening to move this amendment. He has asked me to do so instead. The public sector equality duties under existing legislation are groundbreaking. They require public authorities to have due regard proactively to eliminating discrimination and promoting equality of opportunity in the design of all their policies and practices. These duties have been invaluable in bringing about a culture shift in such organisations. However, the duty has failed to achieve the coherent, broad, systemic and co-ordinated culture change which is needed to eliminate discrimination, or at least mitigate its impact; and to effect equality of opportunities and outcomes. The duty in Clause 148 of the Bill, which closely follows the models in existing legislation, could go even further by making it clear that public authorities must not only have due regard to equality considerations, but take action. A key benefit of the existing duties is that public authorities are required to think about equality in everything they do, not just those activities which are most obviously relevant to equality, such as employment. This has been useful in bringing attention to the more subtle causes of inequality and the proposed amendment in no way alters this, retaining the requirement that a public authority should have due regard to equality considerations in everything it does. However, the duty would be improved if public authorities were required not only to have due regard to equality but to take steps that they reasonably consider appropriate and necessary to the achievement of equality. Public authorities would be required to identify and take steps which are appropriate, and those which are necessary. Necessary steps are those without which equality of opportunity is impossible; appropriate steps are those which, while not strictly necessary, are desirable and proportionate in the circumstances, having regard to their importance and a range of key considerations, including, for example, cost. At present, public authorities on the whole pay lip service to this duty and are able to avoid taking the meaningful action that can lead to equality outcomes and being held accountable for their actions or inactions. The amendment also seeks to ensure that there is no regression from the level of protection afforded to disabled people by the existing disability equality duty. Therefore, the Bill should be amended to reflect the duty under the Disability Discrimination Act, which requires public authorities to take account of people’s disabilities, even where that involves treating disabled people more favourably than others. This is important to draw public authorities’ attention to the distinction between more favourable treatment which is permitted under the Bill, such as positive action, and that which is obligatory for disabled people under the Bill. It is essential that the duty under the Bill should fully recognise that true equality for disabled people will not be achieved if they are simply treated in the same way as others. Cases on the existing public sector equality duties have been important in establishing that they have teeth. To meet the duty, a public authority must have regard to equality considerations before a decision is made in relation to a policy. It must do so rigorously and with an open mind. Compliance with the duty is not a question of ticking boxes. Rather, regard to equality must be integrated into public authorities’ core functions and is a continuing duty requiring attention throughout the development and implementation of a policy. However, the courts have been equally clear that the duty, ""is not a duty to achieve a result, namely to eliminate unlawful racial discrimination or to promote equality of opportunity and good relations … it is a duty to have due regard to the need to achieve these goals"." The distinction is vital. The overwhelming lesson to be learnt from our experience of equalities legislation over the past 40 years is that we need systemic reform, not solely individual redress. Now is the time to build on the success of the current equality duties by making them more effective. The amendments provide the opportunity to make this clause effective to achieve the impact and outcomes intended. I beg to move.