Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what further consideration they have given to whether amending the Equality Act 2010 to include the word "caste" would change or clarify the legal position, given the provisions already in place in section 9(5)(a) of that Act.

This Government has been giving consideration to the legal position on caste discrimination in light of the Tirkey v Chandhok Employment Appeal Tribunal judgment which suggests there is an existing legal remedy for claims of caste-associated discrimination under the ‘ethnic origins’ element of Section 9 of the Equality Act 2010.

Our consideration of the research report commissioned by the coalition Government, designed to determine the feasibility of conducting a national survey to quantify the extent of caste discrimination in Britain, is part of this process.

We remain mindful of the Open Government Action Plan published by the Coalition Government in 2013, to the extent that this concerns the results of commissioned research.