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News from the Equality and Human Rights Commission

Monday 2 December 2024

Welcome to the Equality and Human Rights Commission's latest newsletter.

In this edition you will find a summary of our work in November 2024, including:

• Highlights
  
  • Update on our Board membership  
    
  • Equality Exchange event for uniformed services 
    
  • Code of Practice consultation – your views welcome
    
• Advising Parliament and governments
  • Briefing on the Mental Health Bill
    
  • Briefing on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
    
  • Statement on the Employment Rights Bill and oral evidence session
    
  • Statement on changes to National Insurance
    
• Guidance and advice 
  
  • New sexual harassment preventative duty – webinar and podcast 
    
  • Preventing hair discrimination in schools: can we improve our resources?
    
• Legal and regulatory action
  
  • Welsh Rugby Union signs legal agreement to tackle workplace culture
    
  • Statement on our intervention in For Women Scotland Supreme Court appeal
    
• Human rights
  
  • Engaging with UK National Human Rights Institutions to discuss our human rights work

Highlights

Update on our Board membership

The Office for Equality and Opportunity has confirmed a number of updates to the membership of our Board:

• Baroness Kishwer Falkner’s appointment as Chair has been extended for a further year to 30 November 2025 

• Dr Lesley Sawers OBE will also serve a further year as Deputy Chair 

• Commissioners Jess Butcher, David Goodhart and Su-Mei Thompson will all leave their positions on the Board at the end of November 2024 

• Keith Richards OBE has been appointed to our Board for a period of four years from 13 November 2024. 

Our Equality Exchange event for uniformed services

In November we hosted an event for senior leaders and equality, diversity and inclusion practitioners from armed forces and police and fire services in England, Scotland and Wales.

We were pleased to welcome several delegates from a mixture of national professional bodies, individual forces and services, trade unions and employee networks speakers to this event, which formed part of our ongoing work to tackle sex and race-based discrimination, harassment, and victimisation in the uniformed services. It aimed to improve delegates’ understanding of their legal duties to protect their workforce and how they can put our guidance into practice. 

It also focused on the new preventative duty for all employers which came into force on 26 October 2024. The Worker Protection Act 2023 introduced a legal obligation on employers to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of their staff. 

Code of Practice consultation – your views welcome

We launched a public consultation on our updated Code of Practice for services, public functions and associations. The Code of Practice sets out the steps that service providers, public bodies and associations should take to ensure people are not discriminated against. It applies the legal concepts in the Equality Act 2010 to everyday situations, with practical examples to illustrate how the law can be used to protect against discrimination. 

The Code has been updated to incorporate our technical guidance on age discrimination (originally published March 2016) and our single sex services guidance (published April 2022). 

The updated Code also reflects significant developments in legislation and case law since it was first published in 2011. These developments include case law relating to the definition of disability and the threshold for a philosophical belief to be protected under the Equality Act 2010.   

Our consultation is open to everyone, and we are keen to hear from both organisations and individuals. We particularly want to hear from those who use the Code on how easy the updated Code is to understand, and whether its interpretation of changes to the law are clearly articulated. 

The consultation closes on 3 January 2025 5pm. 

Advising Parliament and governments

Briefing on the Mental Health Bill in House of Lords

We have set out our view on the Mental Health Bill ahead of its second reading in the House of Lords. 

The use of powers under the Mental Health Act has significant implications for equality and human rights, under both domestic legislation and international law. 

Our briefing provides an analysis of the equality and human rights implications of the proposed additions to the Bill, including those aimed at reducing inappropriate detention, providing patients with greater autonomy over their care and treatment, and addressing racial disparities in detention rates and treatment. 

This briefing draws on our more detailed analysis of proposed changes to the Mental Health Act, provided to the Joint Committee on the Draft Mental Health Bill in September 2022. 

Briefing on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill at House of Commons

We have set out our view on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill ahead of its second reading.  

Assisted dying is a complex and sensitive topic and we have not taken a position in favour or opposed to it. Instead, we have produced a briefing that highlights key equality and human rights issues arising from this legislation. 

Our briefing provides more detail on:

• our recommendations for scrutinising the bill effectively human rights issues, including in European and international law

• human rights issues, including in European and international law

• potential discrimination and equality issues

• inequality in health and social care provision

Parliament has a responsibility to ensure equality and human rights concerns are at the forefront of their decision-making. We hope this briefing will support Parliamentarians to come to an informed decision on this matter. 

Statement on the Employment Rights Bill and oral evidence session

The Business and Trade Committee launched its first call for evidence on the government’s Employment Rights Bill last week. Our Chief Executive, John Kirkpatrick, appeared before the Public Bill Committee to give oral evidence on the Bill.  

We support the government’s intention to strengthen the rights of workers. Several measures in the Bill and accompanying ‘Next steps to make work pay’ document may help to tackle longstanding issues faced by workers who are at a disadvantage in the labour market, including certain protected characteristic groups. Some provisions in the Bill may also support the UK to keep its commitments on international employment rights. 

We understand that the UK government is proposing to consult on many of the outlined changes. We support this approach to ensure any new measures are pragmatic, realistic, and deliverable, not only from an enforcement perspective but for employers too. This will help to remove barriers that place individuals at a disadvantage in the workplace.  

Statement on changes to National Insurance

We have written to His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) about the equality impact of changes to National Insurance contributions. 

The department published a policy paper last month, which included a summary of impacts from changes in contributions.  

HMRC is obligated to have considered the equality impact of these changes and should be able to show evidence they have done so. We would expect HMRC to have produced a more detailed equality consideration of the changes.   

Our letter reminds the department of its obligations under the Public Sector Equality Duty and seeks assurances that they have been sufficiently met. 

Guidance and advice

New sexual harassment preventative duty - webinar and podcast

Clare Armstrong, a solicitor in our Litigation and Advisory team, has appeared on the popular ‘Employment Matters’ podcast to raise awareness of changes to sexual harassment laws. 

Clare and host Daniel Barnett discussed the Commission's updated technical guidance on harassment at work. Our updated guidance states that all employers must take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of their workers, including by third parties. Employers must also be proactive in assessing risk, identifying action, and regularly review their processes. 

Rebecca Thomas, our Head of Employment policy, spoke at a Federation of Small Businesses (FSDB) webinar, discussing changes to sexual harassment legislation and our work in this area. This covered key topics for employers such as: 

• the new legal duty on employers to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of their employees 

• the preventative duty including prevention of sexual harassment committed by third parties 

• the steps small business owners should take to be compliant with new legislation 

• potential changes to the duty that the Employment Rights Bill could bring forward

Preventing hair discrimination in schools: can we improve our resources?

Two years ago we published resources to help end hair discrimination in schools. We have launched a survey to continue evaluating the impact of these resources.  

Our practical resources, including supporting videos and a decision-making tool to refer to when drafting relevant school policies, help school leaders make their environments more inclusive and prevent hair discrimination.   

We are asking those involved in education to complete a short survey about the resources to help with our evaluation. Please share the survey with anyone who may be able to complete it. 

We would value your feedback by Friday 17 January 2025 5pm. 

Legal and regulatory action

Welsh Rugby Union signs legal agreement to tackle workplace culture

The Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) has signed a legal agreement with us after concerns over a workplace culture which did not adequately protect staff from discrimination and harassment. 
 
The legally binding agreement sets out what the WRU must do over the next year to improve its workplace policies, practices and culture to protect its employees from discrimination and harassment, including sexual harassment. 

It comes after an independent review found that aspects of the workplace culture at the WRU were ‘toxic’, and that sexism, racism and homophobia were not adequately challenged. The review also found evidence of bullying and an over-reliance on non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) to prevent employees from sharing their experiences. 
 
Under the terms of the Section 23 agreement, the WRU has committed to a range of actions including: 

• introducing mandatory training on equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) for all employees, board members, management and senior leadership

• introducing mandatory training on harassment and dealing with complaints of sexual harassment for people managers

• working with an external adviser to review and amend its corporate workplace policies, including a specific sexual harassment policy 

We will monitor the completion of the actions in the agreement, with many of them already underway. 

Intervention in For Women Scotland Supreme Court appeal 

We were granted permission to intervene in the Supreme Court appeal of For Women Scotland v Scottish Ministers. We published our written submission in advance of the hearing on 26 and 27 November 2024. 

Our intervention in this appeal seeks to assist the Supreme Court in assessing the legal and practical implications of the case. 

Our Chairwoman, Baroness Kishwer Falkner, said: “The central issue raised by this appeal is how ‘sex’, ‘man’ and ‘woman’ are defined in the Equality Act 2010. 

“On that point, our position is that when Parliament passed the Equality Act, it intended those who have acquired a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) to be treated as their certified sex. So a trans woman with a GRC is legally recognised as a woman under the Equality Act, and a trans man with a GRC is legally recognised as a man.  

“We look forward to the Supreme Court’s judgment providing an authoritative interpretation of the existing law in this area.” 

Human rights

Engaging with UK National Human Rights Institutions to discuss our human rights work 

Our Chief Executive, John Kirkpatrick, met with Jan Savage, Executive Director of the Scottish Human Rights Commission and Dr David Russell, Chief Executive of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission. The meeting provided an opportunity to welcome Jan and David to our London office. 

Our Chair and Chief Executive also attended a roundtable discussion between the three UK National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) hosted by Lord Ponsonby, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Ministry of Justice, with responsibility for human rights policy. It was an opportunity for the Minister to discuss priorities and the key role we play in promoting and protecting human rights.  

We look forward to continuing to work together with other NHRIs to advance equality and human rights across Great Britain and Northern Ireland. 

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