The costly Equality Bill passed its Second Reading in the House of Commons on 11th May 2009. The Bill aims to sweep all of the existing law on equality into one Act of Parliament and to eliminate more forms of discrimination than are currently covered. Additional concepts, such as “discrimination by association” and “positive action” are also introduced. The Bill is now due to be considered by a Committee of MPs.
During the debate, Harriet Harman, Minister for both Women and Equality, barely mentioned “religion or belief” in the list of grounds on which people are not allowed to discriminate in the Equality Bill, but instead concentrated upon the gender pay gap and women-only shortlists for MPs. Mrs Theresa May, on behalf of the Conservative Party, asked for the Bill not to be read a second time, one reason being that it allows “...discrimination in recruitment and promotion decisions”. If MPs had succeeded in voting against the Bill being read a second time, it would cease to go through Parliament — at least for this parliamentary session. She also mentioned that businesses are “struggling to stay afloat”, that imposing a compulsory pay audit would be seen as a “bureaucratic nightmare” and that the Bill had been “...muddled by ill-thought-out, unworkable proposals…”.
Conservative MP Philip Davies protested that this is the “...most incredibly misleadingly titled Bill, as one of its central planks is not to enshrine equality in law, but to reintroduce discrimination in the workplace”. He later added that: “...the Government claim in the explanatory notes that the Bill will cost the private sector a one-off sum of £211 million — just what it needs in a recession — and recurring costs of between £11 million and £17 million a year, consisting mainly of additional court and tribunal cases and compensation awards.”
Another Conservative MP, Graham Brady, pointed out that as a result of the “positive action”, “recruitment and promotion” clauses, an employer could choose to employ a white woman in preference to an equally-qualified black man, so that the Bill is actually setting out “...a hierarchy of different, competing equalities”. He added: “This is becoming so complicated that, in seeking to protect some groups quite properly from discrimination, there is a risk of inflicting discrimination on others”.
Liberal Democrat MP Lynne Featherstone called for the partial removal of “religion” as a protected ground, because of the “varied” religious views held by different people in schools on matters such as “abortion, alcohol, homosexuality and sex education”, as well as calling for a narrowing of exemptions for religious employers.
Additionally, Liberal Democrat MP Evan Harris argued that extending the public sector duty to avoid discrimination on grounds of religion is “highly controversial” and runs the risk of “entrenching resentment”. He also argued for the narrowing of exemptions for religion for religious employers. He criticised provisions that allow schools to appoint a teacher who has “Jesus in [his/her] heart” in preference to one who does not and also maligned restrictions on access to faith schools. He admitted that he has interests: his membership of the Joint Committee on Human Rights and his “honorary positions with the British Humanist Association, the Liberal Democrat lesbian, bisexual and transgender campaign, and the National Secular Society.”
All details of the Equality Bill and its progress can be followed at this link: http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2008-09/equality.html.
To access the Second Reading debate, please click here: