Equality Bill

I rise to speak to Amendment 110A in my name, supported by the Discrimination Law Association and the Disability Charities Consortium, representing the views of 12 organisations. Clause 148 is one of the most important clauses in the Bill. Its potential impact is huge so it is vital that it states clearly what Parliament expects of public bodies and others carrying out public functions. My amendment ensures that public authorities take action to meet their duties and do so in a transparent way. The key difference between my amendment and the ones in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Ouseley—spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Young—is that mine focuses on the demonstration of compliance rather than a more closely defined duty in itself. All these amendments are complementary; mine simply goes one step further and could arguably subsume the others. The extra step on demonstrating compliance is needed because the track record to date on compliance with the public duty in the various existing laws is, as the noble Baroness, Lady Young, said, far from perfect. Some of the 40,000 relevant public authorities have taken action: changing policies and practices, training staff and involving service users in making changes. Sadly, this has not been the case in all authorities. Far too many have barely begun to consider their functions from an equality perspective, or at most have produced a form of words on paper and little more. The basic requirement in Clause 148 as drafted is that due regard must be had to the three matters listed in paragraphs (a) to (c) of subsection (1). Having due regard to equality should not merely be the setting of aspirational goals, showpiece displays or events but direct and concrete actions within all relevant functions of a public body. Due regard does not mean, for example, that race equality is less important when the ethnic minority population is small. Neither does it mean that an authority can claim that it does not have the resources needed to meet the duty. One way I expect the duty to be fulfilled in line with my amendment is, for example, if a primary healthcare trust became aware of higher infant mortality rates among certain ethnic mortality groups in its area. To comply with the duty, I would expect the trust to identify the particular needs of women in those communities and the gaps in their services in order to make suitable and effective ante-natal and post-natal provision, including if necessary increasing or reallocating resources. I am looking for something similar to the existing disability equality duty and there are many examples where that has made a significant difference. An example provided by the Disability Charities Consortium is the complaint from a local group against a large metropolitan authority which had not produced an equality scheme, saying instead that it had included relevant actions in various parts of its business plan. The local group was unable to understand precisely what the authority was doing specifically to improve services for disabled people. The disability equality duty requirement meant that the DRC was able to insist on a clear statement with all the details being asked for. Without this it would have been enormously resource intensive and difficult to evaluate the authority’s actions. The aim of my amendment is simply to set a similar statutory minimum standard for compliance with the public sector equality duty to ensure transparency and accountability. I believe that with such a standard in place, the bodies responsible for enforcement or monitoring would have a clearer and more effective basis to track progress and to challenge bodies with poor evidence of compliance. The Government are rightly concerned to promote evidence-based policies and this mechanism would deliver the means to do just that. I ask the Government to agree to think again between now and Report about how best to put in the Bill an acceptance that minimum compliance standards with the public duty must be explicitly required if this section of the Bill is to stand any chance of fulfilling its rich potential and not be just a token gesture.