The Government’s partial U-turn on Section 3 of the Equality Act needs to be seen against a backdrop of other changes to the equality and related social justice legislation. These include:
• New restrictions on the ability to challenge the state with restrictions to judicial review
• Tribunals fees of up to £1,200 coming in this summer
• An Increase of the general unfair dismissal qualification from 1 to 2 years
• Reductions in the consultation period for redundancy
• The end of crucial protections in discrimination such as questionnaires and protection from 3rd party harassment
• Legal aid providers and face to face legal advice slashed and the removal of legal aid for migrants and prisoners
We have also seen the closure of the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s £10m grants programme ending support for local equalities groups engaged in “good relations” or discrimination advisory work. This is a funding stream which has not been replaced by the Government. Further, Sections 10 and 19 of the Equality Act 2006 set out the Commission’s powers and duties to promote good relations between and within groups (defined as those who share a protected characteristic). This was a key responsibility inherited from the Commission for Racial Equality linked to maintaining good community relations and apparently no longer required as the government has now repealed these provisions.
The Commission has said this will not have a significant impact on its work. This is in part due to its adherence to the public sector equality duty (that contains a good relations provision). However PSED is currently subject to a government review and is under a significant threat, and the good relations provision of the PSED has never been widely applied.
The PSED – already watered down once – is a powerful legal and promotional tool used to drive improvements to equality outcomes in the public sector. Cameron has already called for an end to Equality impact assessments, as he is content to rely on the common sense of those “smart people in Whitehall”! Largely male, pale and privately educated, perhaps they remind him of someone.
The question now for Liberal Democrats should be: are we the party of retrenchment or reform? If the latter, we need to ensure that our coalition partner receives no further concessions and start considering how we can best go about undoing some of the damage that has already been done. Lib Dem MPs have already found themselves in the position of voting against the positions they took in 2006 and 2010. If our coalition partner has its way they will have further opportunities to do so. How will they then vote if a Labour led administration (perhaps in coalition with ourselves) should wish to re-introduce in some form, the legislation so repealed. It’s time to get ourselves off the hook and get equalities back on the agenda for the right reasons.
* Robin is a member in Cardiff and Vale of Glamorgan
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12 Comments
This reminds me of a poem, it goes
First they came for the jews, but I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a jew.
Then they came for the .. .. I dont remember the rest, it was quite a long time ago.
All in all, par for the course of strategies in all areas of the coalition. We have been naive from the start and have paid handsomely for our folly.
The usual moaning from people who simply wont recognise that we are in Coalition with a much stronger Party, a decision that we overwhelmingly backed at the time. Of course we were naive, we had no experience of Power at the Westminster level. Can we please stop holding our own Party to ridiculously high standards while letting others off the hook ?
We may be in danger here of equating the principle of equality with each particular law passed and pound spent with the intention of promoting equality.
But laws and spending don’t always deliver the intention behind them, or sometimes they deliver it, but not in the best way. Therefore sometimes they ought to be changed.
If the dustbin service, or the road maintenance department is reconfigured, saving some money, it’s not usually fair to describe this as backtracking on the principle of collecting the bins and maintaining the roads. Why is the world of equalities any different?
I suppose it is different because it is much more difficult to see the service outcomes in practise than it is to see a collected bin or fixed pothole. But this probably means there is more scope for reform rather than less.
Now maybe the General Duty, and the PSED as it currently stands, is the best way to promote equality, and that all proposed changes are mistaken. That seems to be the critical argument, but I don’t see it being made here.
And yes maybe there is necessary compromise within the coalition too, but I think we are sometimes too ready to jump on that as the sufficient explanation for everything.
Well said Joe, there is danger in pretending any reform is a cut. How many judicial reviews get nowhere ? They are not free – yes to the concept of judicial review, yes to making the process reasonable, no to opping any reform to the process, Legal aid – there are shock horror examples of people using legal aid unreasonably. As cost s are hardly ever awarded in such cases it is win-win for solicitors. Do we set any performance standards for people being paid by legal aid. Have you ever tired to complain about a solicitor ? Consultation on redundancy – the question is is it real or sham consultation – not how long it is dragged out. unfair dismissal – I agree it should stya at 1 year – or even come down to 6 months – but this is a judgement not an unchanging principle.
I agree with you Robin. Whether or not we are compromising it makes us look weak and incoherent. There does seem to be a lot of Coalition policy where we are mitigating the damaging and regressive effects of tory policy or stopping them go as far as they would like. There seems very little in the other direction. Anything radical and fundamentally against Tory policy never seems to get a look in.
I agree we woke up one morning in May 2010 and found ourselves in coalition with what some in the party would regard as our natural enemies (we have others too). Like Gordon, I agree with Alan. I absolutely support our position as a coalition partner but we seem to be going along with the Tory equality law “reforms” with our eyes wide shut. I am not wedded irrevocably to the idea that the PSED will deliver the society that we all want to see, but I do know from working in the equalities field over a number of years that it takes time to effect change. You get the occasional paradigm shift like the MacPherson Report but mostly it’s water on a stone. That’s why the review of the PSED is so premature and so obviously politically driven.
As I pointed out, we need to start considering how we can best go about recovering our reputation on equalities, in the same way as we are distinguishing ourselves from the Tories more broadly in the run-up to 2015. Labour have given us an ‘early’ opportunity to do so (http://www.parliament.uk/edm/2012-13/1279). Check the signatories; a couple of interesting names.
In reply to Caractus’s comments, if the capacity to use judicial review as a legal remedy is to be restricted, what other means are available to provide a check on an overly powerful Executive branch of Government? With regard to the cuts in legal aid, we would be wise to remember that this is a service for the benefit of the poor and vulnerable in society who can not afford a lawyer.
In accepting the retention of Section 3 of the General Duty (Equality Act 2006), the Government has made clear that it is on the basis of it being purely symbolic with no legal purpose. If there was ever any doubt about this, sadly it has now been corrected.
The PSED is a different matter. After several local authorities used the three former equality duties, (race, gender and disability) to successfully challenge Secretary of State, Michael Gove’s decision to discontinue projects under the Building Schools for the future programme, the Government announced significant changes to the specific duties, stressing the need to remove ‘prescriptive processes’ in order to focus on “outcomes”. The duty to publish Equality Impact Assessments was also removed.
The subsequent PSED Review was the brainchild of Theresa May and the panel appointed to look at it were chosen during her tenure as Minister with overall responsibility for Equalities.
At least the Police Federation has something constructive to say about the PSED.
http://www.polfed.org/newsroom/1255.aspx#.UXVp4mD9yHw.twitter
Evidence to support the value of the PSED is being collected by civil society organisations across the country. If it has no intrinsic worth, why are they doing it?
Robin Lynn is right, the Liberal Democrats need to wake up. Policies devised in Government by civil servants for a Conservative led coalition need to be consistent with agreed Liberal Democrat Party Policy.
@paul barker
It might be interesting for you to know that I am the policy officer of the Lib Dem Disability Association and I can tell you that, when wise and loyal heads in both the LDDA and the EMLD (Ethnic Minority Lib Dems), as well as non-partisan charities, are worried that years of progress in equality legislation are under threat, then it most definitely is not just “the usual suspects”.
Of course, by your twisted logic, the coalition government could outlaw elections and invade Iran but it would still be okay and nothing we should complain about solely because we’re “the junior party in coalition”.
I ask you, what’s the point of being in government if time and time again we utterly fail to make any liberal changes to regressive Tory instincts in policy area after policy area?
@CP Martin Niemoller wrote the verse you quoted, He spent 7 years of his life in a concentration camp, he stood for what he believed in. There is more written on line should you wish to read it.
Human rights and justice go together, Jews have their own form of law, that’s a fact. But most Jews like freedom and justice.
It is easy to turn away and not make a comment when we know there is wrong, but like the verse says, we are guilty of just that.
Its Just a way to remove the risk of judicial reviews before the really nasty reforms are brought in.
The coalition already scrapped the consultation process and eroded the impartiality of civil servants in key positions
With respect to those above who are basically saying “don’t diss the coalition, it was our decision” then you should remember it involved a programme of government which party members could sign up to. Those self same party members should be a lot less tolerant to the innovations which came afterwards including this one.
It isn’t the libdems that are naieve about coalitions, it never ever was. Lib dems at least are used to the nature of coalition of governments having been involved in them in Scotland, Wales and local authorities. It is the people in the Coalition who seem to just be using each other as cover for their own agenda ends. Any libdem MSP, AM or councillor tells you that an approach like that will mean the executive runs out of steam after a few years. Coalitions ideally temper the excesses of each others parties, this one has really failed with the introduction of measures undermining governance like this