Equality Act 2010 (Consequential Amendments, Saving and Supplementary Provisions) Order 2010
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Baroness Verma
That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Equality Act 2010 (Consequential Amendments, Saving and Supplementary Provisions) Order 2010.
Relevant Document: Second Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.
Baroness Verma
My Lords, the underlying theme of the order is to make effective the provisions of the Act in line with its main intention of simplification and consistency. The changes that the order makes fall into three broad categories.
First, some of the changes involve corrections or updates to the Equality Act 2010 itself. Article 3 makes amendments to Section 87 of the Act. Section 87 enables the Secretary of State to give directions using powers under the Education Act 1996 to require a school to comply with its duties not to discriminate against pupils under Section 85. The reason for the amendment is to refer to the corresponding Scottish legislation to ensure that the procedure works for Scotland as well as for England and Wales.
Article 4 makes changes to Section 94, which explains what is meant by various terms used in Chapter 2—on further and higher education—of Part 6. The amendment is needed to reflect concerns from interested parties that there needs to be a definition of “conferment” in the context of awarding qualifications.
Article 5 makes changes to Section 108. Section 108 prohibits discrimination after relationships have ended, and the amendment to subsection (4) is intended to replicate existing law. That is to say that even if a person becomes disabled after the relationship has ended, the duty to make a reasonable adjustment still applies. The current Act could be interpreted as meaning that the duty arose only if the person already had a disability at the time the relationship ended. The amendment puts that right.
Articles 6 and 7 make changes to Sections 132, 134 and 135. Those provisions cover, among other things, the period for calculating arrears where successful claims are made about equal pay or pensions cases in Scotland, in the case of a person with an incapacity or one involving a fraud or error. The effect of the amendment is that the five-year limit for calculating arrears may be extended if it includes time during which the claimant suffered incapacity or was induced by the fraud or error not to raise the claim, subject to a maximum reckonable period of 20 years. The amendments enable the provisions to work correctly in Scotland and reflect the existing position under the Equal Pay Act 1970.
Article 9 amends Part 9 of Schedule 3 to the Equality Act to reproduce an amendment made to Section 19 of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 by the Rail Passengers’ Rights and Obligations Regulations 2010, after the Equality Act received Royal Assent. Those provisions of the Equality Act restate provisions of the DDA that provide for exceptions to the duty not to discriminate in relation to the provision of transport services for disabled people. The amendment needs to be made to ensure that, when they come into force, the Equality Act provisions are exactly the same as the existing DDA provisions which will be repealed.
To reassure noble Lords, I can state that the amendment does not in any way reduce the rights of disabled persons, but simply ensures that there is no overlap between domestic equality legislation and European transport legislation protecting the rights of disabled people in air and rail transport.
Article 10 amends Schedule 11 to the Equality Act to remove a reference to the Learning and Skills Council, which was abolished just before the Equality Act was enacted. Articles 8 and 11 update certain provisions to refer to EU law rather than Community law, as a result of the coming into force of the Lisbon treaty.
The second category of amendments is to reflect adjustments needed to the existing equality duties to reflect the introduction of new key concepts by the Equality Act. The existing gender duty, race duty and disability duty will be replaced by the new public sector equality duty in Sections 149 to 157 of the Equality Act, but not until some time after October. Therefore, the existing provisions in the Sex Discrimination Act, Race Relations Act and Disability Discrimination Act need to be kept in force for the time being. However, the existing definitions of sex, race and disability discrimination, victimisation and harassment in those Acts are slightly different to those in the Equality Act.
Articles 14 to 16 therefore update the relevant provisions of the Sex Discrimination Act, Race Relations Act and Disability Discrimination Act to reflect the new terminology. This will make it easier for public authorities to operate, as they will not need to use one set of definitions for public sector equality duties and another for all their other equality-related functions.
Lord Addington
My Lords, this is one of those times when there is not much to say, and I shall be quick about saying what little there is to say.
Basically, there is nothing to disagree with here. As the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, said, it carries on the previous Government’s good work in many fields. It brings everything together in one Act, or tries to. The law here, good and well intentioned though it was, was a bit like a cat’s cradle and thus occasionally became a dog’s dinner, if I am allowed to double my metaphors; there was so much legislation that crossed over. Everyone who is involved in any part of this area of the law should welcome this approach. Not only is there nothing to disagree with here, but hopefully we shall carry on in this way.
Baroness Verma
I thank the Committee for this short but quality debate. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Gale for her kind welcoming remarks. I also pay tribute to the wonderful work that she has done in this area. I assure her that there will be several pieces of guidance. Five summary guides were published on 5 July, and a further set of quick-start guides will be released over the summer.
I welcome my noble friend’s comments. We all want to ensure that we can make society as equal as possible. Wherever we find discrimination against any group that we are able to eradicate, we will do so. This piece of legislation is a tool to help us achieve that.
On that note, I hope that we shall have no problems in passing the order. The Equality Act 2010, which went through this House just a few months ago, has momentum, and I hope that with your Lordships’ approval, we will see the benefits of it soon.