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?
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