Expansion of discrimination law will extend positive action regime
Employment and human rights lawyers have largely welcomed Harriet Harman’s Equality Bill.
The wide-ranging Bill combines existing discrimination law into one statute, allows positive discrimination during recruitment, and bans gagging clauses on employees discussing their pay.
Employers with more than 250 staff members could be required to publish details of discrepancies between salaries from 2013.
Rachel Dineley, employment partner, Beachcroft LLP, says: “The Bill has been a long time coming and the sooner we distil the many pieces of legislation into a single Act, the better.”
Dineley says the expansion of the law on discrimination by association is a key development: “In future, workers who may themselves not have a relevant characteristic—related to gender, age or disability—but
are associated with someone who has, such as someone for whom they care or to whom they are related, may not be adversely treated, by reason
of that association. This will protect, for example, carers of the disabled or elderly parents.
“Controversially, the Bill will extend the positive action regime. Employers will be able to consider, when selecting between two equally qualified candidates, underrepresentation of disadvantaged groups and appoint the under-represented person. The merits of these new provisions are controversial and some view it as social engineering by the back door. However, with only 131 women on the UK FTSE 100 boards, one can see why the government perceives that positive action must be facilitated, where there is a driver to achieve a better balance in representation. Employers will have some discretion in how the power is exercised.”
Geoffrey Bindman, founder of Bindmans LLP, says the Bill completes the antidiscrimination reform process by bringing the substantive law into a single statutory code.
“The proposal to make the equal pay duty more effective by requiring disclosure of salaries and wages will not be welcomed by everyone,
especially the men who benefit from inequality,” he adds.
