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News from the Equality and Human Rights Commission
Thursday 2nd May 2024 |
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Welcome to the Equality and Human Rights Commission's monthly newsletter.
In this edition you will find a summary of our work throughout April 2024, including:
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Our Business Plan for 2024-2025 | | Our business plan for 2024–2025 describes the major projects we plan to deliver in the coming year. We have proposed activity that is:
We will continue to deliver against the goal we outlined in our strategic plan: to focus our resources where we can make a real, lasting, positive difference to the lives of individuals across Britain.
While we continue to deliver on the six areas of focus in our Strategic plan 2022-25, we have organised this year's business plan into 14 key priority areas. Some of our priority areas include:
tackling sexual harassment in the workplace regulating artificial intelligence and tackling digital exclusion upholding freedom of expression monitoring human rights preparing for 2025–28 and beyond | | | Read our Business Plan 2024 - 2025 | |
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Consultation Responses | | Our response to the Conversion Practices Bill, Scotland |
We have written to the Sottish Government in response to their consultation on ending conversion practices.
We support measures to end these practices, and the general principles of the proposals, however, we have highlighted a few key areas of risk.
It is critically important that:
legislation is drafted in a way to avoid unintended consequences – including the risk of inhibiting or criminalising legitimate activity a robust evidence base is established on the prevalence and nature of conversion practices relating to sexual orientation and gender identity definitions of harm, liability, sexual orientation and gender identity are robust and coherent with existing equality law
We look forward to engaging further with this Bill so that we can support the Scottish Government to consider the equality implications of these proposals.
| | Read our letter on the Conversion Practices Bill, Scotland | | | Our statement on the final report of the Cass Review |
This month we published a statement in response to the final report from The Independent Review of Gender Identity Services for Children and Young People (The Cass Review), which was commissioned by NHS England and NHS Improvement in Autumn 2020 to make recommendations about the services provided by the NHS to children and young people who are questioning their gender identity or experiencing gender incongruence.
We welcomed the publication of the final report, which represents a vital reform to the provision of healthcare and other services by service providers, decision-makers and regulators.
It is imperative that we work cooperatively and professionally to deliver the quality services that our children and young people deserve.
We urge all those working with and providing services for children and young people to urgently address themselves to the task of implementing Dr Cass's recommendations in full.
| | Read our statement on the final report of the Cass Review | |
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Regulatory action | | Helping the Home Office to make equality improvements |
We have concluded our agreement with the Home Office after it took the necessary steps to help improve the UK Government’s treatment of people from ethnic minorities.
We entered into a legally binding agreement with the Home Office after it failed to comply with the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) when implementing ‘hostile environment’ immigration measures. In particular, it had neglected to fully consider the impact its policies would have on black members of the Windrush generation.
In our role as an independent regulator, we worked closely with the Home Office to address our concerns. Significant progress has since been made to help improve the UK Government’s treatment of people from ethnic minorities.
While the Home Office did not complete all of our requirements in full by the 31 March deadline, we are satisfied that the department is committed to continuing the work to embed our recommendations across the organisation.
| | | Read about the conclusion of our agreement with the Home Office | | | Updated guidance for employers on pregnancy and maternity protections |
We have released an updated toolkit for employers, offering clear advice and guidance on actions employers can take to prevent pregnancy and maternity discrimination at work.
The updated toolkit outlines the specific changes that employers will have to make, in line with the new flexible working laws that came into effect in April. These include:
extending protection from redundancy for pregnant women and those on maternity, adoption and shared parental leave offering pregnant women and those on maternity, adoption and shared parental leave suitable alternative employment in redundancy situations, with priority over other employees for alternative roles providing the ability to request flexible working from the first day of employment increasing flexibility in the utilisation of paternity leave
We encourage all employers to read our guidance to ensure they are fully compliant with the law and understand how to prevent discrimination against their employees.
| | Read our pregnancy and maternity guidance | | | Learn about the change in flexible working laws | | | Our approach to regulating Artificial Intelligence |
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has great potential to benefit society, but it also comes with a wide range of risks including risks of bias and discrimination, as well as risks to human rights. As the independent equality regulator for England, Scotland and Wales and an A-status National Human Rights Institution we have an important role in supporting responsible and fair innovation in AI.
AI has been a priority for us since 2022 and in our response to the government’s White Paper ‘A pro-innovation approach to regulating AI’, we set out our ambition to be an effective regulator of AI.
In 2024-25 we will focus predominantly on:
reducing and preventing digital exclusion, particularly for older and disabled people in accessing local services the use of AI in Recruitment Practices developing solutions to address bias and discrimination in AI systems police use of facial recognition technology (FRT)
| | Learn more about our approach to regulating AI | |
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Parliamentary Briefings | | Data Protection and Digital Information Bill |
As the House of Lords continues its consideration of the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill, we issued a briefing highlighting our concerns. Our concerns fall into two main areas:
unnecessary and disproportionate checks on the bank accounts of benefit claimants by the DWP (Clause 128) insufficient safeguarding of biometric data collection and surveillance cameras (Clauses 147 and 148)
The proposals risk weakening individuals' data rights and opening the door to discrimination, especially in scenarios where AI shapes decision-making. We have recommended that Peers reject these clauses to ensure the protection of people’s right to privacy.
We will continue to advise the House of Lords as the Bill is scrutinised, to ensure its equality and human rights implications are considered. | | | Read our briefing on the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill | | | Read our blog on personal data rights in the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill | |
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Human Rights | | Report from the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities |
The UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (the Committee) has published its report on progress following its review of its 2016 inquiry into disabled people’s rights in the UK.
As the National Human Rights Institution (NHRI), for England and Wales, we have, in collaboration with the other equality bodies and NHRIs in the UK, engaged with the Committee throughout their review.
In August 2023, we published a report in which we warned that disabled people face daily discrimination in the UK, highlighting that the situation continues to worsen, particularly alongside cost-of-living pressures.
In March this year, we sent a letter to the Committee, to provide the latest updates before the Committee spoke with representatives from the UK Government and devolved administrations.
The Committee has now found that, while some measures have been taken, there has been no significant progress to improve disabled people’s rights in the UK since 2016, with some areas showing signs of regression.
We are again urging the UK and Welsh governments to uphold their obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) to ensure that the rights of persons with disabilities are protected. | | | | Read our report on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities | | | Learn about the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities | | | Human Rights Tracker | |  |
Our human rights tracker is an online tool to help you track how well the UK and Welsh Governments are putting their human rights duties into practice. You can use it to find out how we monitor human rights, search the UN’s most recent recommendations and check out our assessments of progress.
| | | Visit our Human Rights Tracker | |
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