The Equality Bill received its second reading in Parliament yesterday. Serious anoraks can read the debate here. The frustrating thing about the debate is how many contributors either misunderstand the Bill or misunderstand the law as it currently stands. It would take too long to point out individual errors, but there was a debate about employers requiring employees to speak Polish where nobody seemed to know how the current law would deal with that (indirect race discrimination; issue would be whether the requirement was justified). Positive action was also widely misunderstood and some of the difficulties in terms of age discrimination and insurance were simply glossed over.
Never mind - the real work starts when the Bill moves into Committee. That’s where it receives clause by clause scrutiny and amendments are made. I’ll be keeping track of every amendment so watch this space. The Committee stage will be completed on 7th July, by which time the Commons will be ready to take its much earned 12 week summer holiday. That leaves a lot still to do in the Autumn and early next year. Will the Government actually have time to push the Bill through?
As I write this I’m listening to the debate in Parliament on the second reading of the Equality Bill. Although the Conservatives support parts of the Bill they will vote against it tonight.
As I suspected, most of the debate so far is focussed on public sector duties and gender pay gap issues. No-one is grappling with the real detail - we will have to wait for the committee stage for that.
One issue that has come up is the issue of caste discrimination. When asked about it, Harriet Harman suggested that it was already unlawful. It isn’t as far as I am aware. Caste is not the same thing as race or ethnic origin and if an employer bases a choice between two employees of the same ethnic origin based on their caste then that is not, it seems to me, to be discrimination. Perhaps this is an issue that the Government will be prepared to move on.
Harriet Harman also claimed that the Bill outlaws discrimination against carers. I can’t find this provision anywhere. It outlaws discrimination because of the protected characteristic of someone they associate with, but that is not the same thing as treating someone less favourably because they have caring responsibilities. Could this be something for further development as the Bill progresses?
The Government has published a consultation document on implementing the Agency Work Directive. We expect full Regulations to be published in the Autumn and they are likely to take effect early next year.
Note that even if there is a change of Government following an election, the Directive will still need to be implemented.
The Regulations will transform the way in which agency workers are engaged in this country - but they will not have the effect of making agency workers employees or giving them the right to claim unfair dismissal. The main impact will be on the employment terms - particularly pay and holidays - which agency workers are entitled to once they have been on an assignment for 12 weeks. It is important to realise that both agencies and end users will have legal obligations to meet.
When the Regulations are finalised, all employers who use agency workers will need to get up to speed in time for the new regime. We will be running in-house courses for clients on this issue from October onwards when the details of the new rules become clear. To arrange a course in your organisation contact Paul Gasowski on 0208 943 1099 or email him at : paul@incotraining.co.uk
