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News from the Equality and Human Rights Commission
Tuesday 9 September 2025 |
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Welcome to the latest newsletter from the Equality and Human Rights Commission. In this edition, we look back on our engagements and regulatory action during the parliamentary recess.
We shared our updated code of practice with the Minister for Women and Equalities, and intervened on issues around protest rights and police use of live facial recognition. We also published new research on the socio-economic duty and gave feedback to the Welsh Government on its Draft Disabled People’s Rights Plan. |
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Highlights | | Code of practice for services, public functions and associations handed to Minister for Women and Equalities | | We have submitted an updated code of practice for services, public functions and associations to the Minister for Women and Equalities for approval.
The UK government will now consider the guidance. It is also responsible for progressing it through parliamentary approval. The Minister must lay the draft code before Parliament for 40 days before it can be brought into force. The government will choose when to start this process.
Once it has been brought into force, we will publish it on our website. The code will then have legal status as the guide on how service providers, associations and public functions can meet the duties set out in the Equality Act 2010.
We ran a comprehensive consultation process that began in autumn 2024, where we asked how we could make the guidance clearer. Through the consultation process, we heard a range of views from over 50,000 organisations, legal professionals and individuals across England, Scotland and Wales. Thank you to everyone who took part. | | | Read the latest announcement on the code of practice | | Lidl signs legal agreement to prevent sexual harassment | | Lidl GB (Lidl Great Britain Limited) has signed a Section 23 legal agreement with us to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace.
It comes after an employment tribunal found Lidl GB had failed to take all reasonable steps to prevent the sexual harassment of a young female employee by a staff member between 2019 and 2021.
This legal agreement sets out the further steps Lidl GB has committed to under the new sexual harassment preventative duty in the Worker Protection Act. We will monitor the completion of these actions.
| | | Read more about our Section 23 agreement with Lidl GB | | Metropolitan Police’s use of facial recognition: our intervention | | We are calling for the Metropolitan Police to ensure that its use of live facial recognition technology (LFRT) complies with human rights law.
This is part of our submission to an upcoming judicial review examining whether the Metropolitan Police’s use of the technology complies with human rights law.
Everyone has the right to privacy, to freedom of expression and to freedom of assembly. We believe that the Metropolitan Police’s current policy is incompatible with these articles in the European Convention on Human Rights.
Currently, there is no specific domestic legislation regulating police use of LFRT. Instead, police rely on common law powers. We acknowledge the potential value of LFRT to policing, but there must be clear rules to guarantee that this technology is used only where necessary, proportionate and constrained by appropriate safeguards.
| | | Read more about our intervention on live facial recognition technology | | Proportionate policing to protect fundamental protest rights: our letter | | Our Chairwoman, Baroness Kishwer Falkner, has written to the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley to expressed concerns about the policing of recent demonstrations related to Gaza, the West Bank and Israel.
The letter highlighted reports of police engagement with peaceful protesters not linked to proscribed organisations, warning that heavy-handed approaches risk undermining democratic rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.
We have offered our expertise to support the police in providing guidance which protects human rights and safeguards the public. | | | Read our letter to the Home Secretary and Metropolitan Police Commissioner about policing of recent demonstrations |
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| Legal and regulatory action | | Organisations contacted following government single-sex spaces policies review | | We have completed our review of policies that may misrepresent the Equality Act 2010 regarding single-sex spaces. Following a call for input in May 2024, the UK government referred 404 examples of policies to us.
We are writing to 19 organisations across policing, education, health and public services, asking them to review policies that wrongly suggest people have an automatic legal right to access single-sex spaces based on self-identification.
As the national regulator for equality and human rights in Great Britain, we have a statutory duty to promote compliance with equality law. The organisations must respond with assurances that policies will be withdrawn and provide any timetables for revisions. We will monitor compliance and consider further action if necessary.
| | | Read about the evidence review of single-sex spaces policies | | NHS Fife directed to comply with Public Sector Equality Duty | | In August we directed NHS Fife to take action to comply with the Equality Act 2010 regarding access to single-sex facilities for their staff.
We have highlighted that undertaking and publishing equality impact assessments are statutory requirements under the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) in Scotland. NHS Fife has now commissioned an assessment and anticipate that it will be published by 30 September. NHS Fife has committed to a full review of changing, toilet and locker facilities without delay.
We continue to engage both NHS Fife and the Scottish Government ensuring compliance with equality duties across NHS Scotland.
| | | Read our statement on NHS Fife |
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Advising Parliament and governments | | New research on the socio-economic duty ahead of England rollout | | We have published new research examining how the socio-economic duty is being implemented in Scotland and Wales. The UK government has made a commitment to introduce this duty (Section 1 of the Equality Act 2010) in England.
The socio-economic duty requires certain public bodies to consider how their strategic decisions might help to reduce inequalities associated with socio-economic disadvantage.
Our report provides an up-to-date understanding of the socio-economic duty – based on a survey and interviews held with duty-bearers across the nations. We found that duty-bearers in Scotland and Wales reported widespread understanding of the socio-economic duty, but there were differences in experiences of implementation between the two nations.
The findings have also informed our response to the Office for Equality and Opportunity’s call for evidence on equality law, which includes the commencement of the socio-economic duty in England.
| | | Read our socio-economic duty evaluation report for Scotland and Wales | | | Read our response to the Office of Equality and Opportunity’s equality law call for evidence | | Welsh Government consultation on its Draft Disabled People’s Rights Plan: our response | | We have called on the Welsh Government to commit to measurable improvements for disabled people following its consultation on the draft Disabled People's Rights Plan.
In our response we have urged for stronger accountability measures, including regular progress reports and clear timeframes for when disabled people can expect to see improvements.
We emphasised that active engagement with disabled people is a key human rights obligation, advising the government to involve disabled people in developing, implementing and monitoring policies affecting them as standard practice.
We also stressed that without measurable targets and robust accountability mechanisms, the Welsh Government risks failing to deliver the meaningful improvements that disabled people in Wales deserve and need.
| | | Read our response to the Welsh Government’s consultation on the Disabled People’s Rights Plan | |
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| Human rights | | UN economic, social and cultural recommendations now on our Human Rights Tracker | | The UN has made recommendations on how England and Wales can better protect people’s economic, social and cultural rights, from the right to food, housing and healthcare, to fair pay and decent work. These recommendations come as part of the UK’s review under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) treaty.
As an A-status National Human Rights Institution, we contributed evidence to this review and many of our recommendations align with the UN's conclusions.
These recommendations are now available in plain English and Welsh on the Human Rights Tracker, together with a range of other UN human rights treaty body recommendations to England and Wales.
| | | Read the latest ICESCR recommendations | |
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