As is well known, the Equality Act 2010 replaced the vast majority of British anti-discrimination laws with one single statute on 1 October 2010. Not all parts of the Act came into force on 1 October 2010 and 6 April 2011 is the start date for three significant related items: 1. Positive action (Equality Act…
On Sunday 23 January the Daily Mail published an article under the heading “Equality Madness” in which it said that the government is spending tens of millions of pounds in order to comply with the terms of the Equality Act 2010. Examples referred to include £100,000 spent on a DEFRA report investigating how efforts to…
Has Parliament (and the law draftsman) got it wrong? Our October newsletter was largely given over to looking at the new Equality Act. From 1 October 2010 this has replaced in one single Act the previous mish-mash of anti-discrimination Acts and Regulations enacted since 1970 so that the old Equal Pay Act, the Sex and Disability Discrimination…
The specific change in the law made by Equality Act 2010 in relation to transsexual people is short and easy to state. The new wording means that the person concerned need not be under medical supervision to be able to sue for unlawful discrimination. This is a change from previous law, although the substance of previous law…
As a general rule, positive discrimination in favour of a particular category of persons involves discrimination against those not in that category. Depending on the particular situation, positive discrimination in favour of one category of persons is therefore likely to be unlawful discrimination against others. The Equality Act allows what it calls “positive action” in some situations. …
With a few necessary exceptions the Equality Act 2010 makes it inappropriate for an employer to ask a job applicant any health related questions before offering work to the job applicant. Merely asking questions about the job applicant’s health is not unlawful disability discrimination but anything the employer does in reliance on information given in…
The official June 2008 White Paper on the Equality Bill said that it would “ban pay secrecy and ‘gagging’ clauses which stop employees discussing pay with their colleagues”. The idea, of course, was to remove one of the practical difficulties sometimes faced by employees (generally women) seeking to bring equal pay claims on the basis…
Arlene Phillips, one of the judges on TV’s “Strictly Come Dancing” was aged 66 when she was not reappointed. Neither her age nor her sex on their own was the reason for her non-reappointment – this was provable from the fact that another judge was 65 and yet another judge was female. Under the law…
The general rule is that informal “out of court settlements” of employment disputes are not legally binding in the sense that they cannot exclude an employee’s right to take the matter concerned to an Employment Tribunal. As is well known, one exception to this general rule is a formal “compromise agreement”. Provided it complies with…
Important legislation such as the Equal Pay Act 1970, the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, the Race Relations Act 1976, the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 are all repealed (and replaced) and regulations such as the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006, the Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003 and the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003…