|
News from the Equality and Human Rights Commission
Wednesday 8 October 2025 |
|
|
Welcome to our latest newsletter, where we share how we are using our powers to defend your freedom while promoting a fairer England, Scotland and Wales.
From advising Parliament on complex legislation like assisted dying, to holding employers accountable for failing to report gender pay gap data, our work continues to shape policy, strengthen protections, and promote transparency for equality and human rights. Recently we have been supporting inclusive language legislation in Wales, helping uniformed services tackle harassment through better data, building relations with National Human Rights Institutions across Europe and tracking government progress on international human rights obligations. | |
|
|
Highlights | | Celebrating 15 years of the Equality Act 2010 | This October marks the fifteenth anniversary of the Equality Act 2010, a milestone in advancing equality and human rights in Britain that continues to serve as a foundation for fairness and progress.
Over the past decade and a half, we have used our powers to protect everyone in Britain from discrimination, while strengthening protections and promoting equality across the nine protected characteristics, which were introduced when the Act came into force in 2010.
Our Chief Executive John Kirkpatrick has reflected on our achievements over the past 15 years in a LinkedIn blog post. | | | Read about our progress since the Equality Act 2010 | | Sharing human rights knowledge on the international stage | Our Chief Executive, John Kirkpatrick, recently attended the Leadership Programme event organised by the European Network of National Human Rights Institutions (ENNHRI), a group of over 50 member institutions.
Forums like these are a valuable opportunity for National Human Rights Institution (NHRI) leaders to exchange information, experiences and knowledge with their counterparts across Europe. This kind of collaboration helps strengthen our collective response to shared human rights challenges.
By engaging with ENNHRI and contributing to these peer learning spaces, we also reinforce our commitment to the Paris Principles. Sharing best practices and learning from others supports our work as an independent, effective and accountable NHRI. | | | Read about our work on human rights |
|
|
Advising Parliament and governments | | Assisted dying bill briefing for House of Lords Second Reading | We provided advice on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill ahead of its Second Reading in the House of Lords, recommending more detailed assessment of the bill’s potential impact on people with protected characteristics. Assisted dying is a complex and sensitive topic that touches on strong emotions and deeply held beliefs. As Britain’s equality regulator, and a National Human Rights Institution, we do not take a position for or against assisted dying. Instead, our briefing is designed to: | | | Read about the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill briefing | | British Sign Language (Wales) Bill consultation: our response | Welcoming the promotion of British Sign Language (BSL) in Wales, we wrote to the Chair of the Equality and Social Justice Committee in the Senedd Cymru, the Welsh Parliament, about the British Sign Language (Wales) Bill.
In the letter, our Head of Wales, Ruth Coombs, confirmed our readiness to provide statutory advice on the bill and its implications for equality law.
We also recommended that the committee scrutinise the bill’s accountability mechanisms for monitoring compliance with the Wales BSL duties. | | | Read our letter to the Equality and Social Justice Committee | |
|
|
Legal and regulatory action | | Holding employers to account on gender pay gap reporting |
We have named ten organisations, including Rick Stein Restaurants, Purplebricks and Jigsaw, for failing to report their gender pay gap data.
For organisations with 250 or more employees, reporting gender pay gap data isn’t just a legal requirement; it is also a key tool for identifying and addressing pay inequality and discrimination. Without tracking and reporting, organisations can’t tackle this matter effectively.
We have written to ask these organisations to report their data as soon as possible, and remind them of our powers to conduct a legal investigation if they do not. | | | Read the ten organisations instructed to report their data | |
|
|
Guidance and advice | | Tackling harassment in the uniformed services with better equality data: step-by-step guide launched | We have published new guidance to help police, fire and rescue services, and armed forces collect and analyse workplace equality data.
Launched at a sector event in September to uniformed services professionals, this guidance is an important first step in tackling harassment and discrimination in the workforces of Britain’s uniformed services. It also aims to improve service culture, reputation, staff retention and Public Sector Equality Duty compliance.
The uniformed services programme is a multi-year initiative tackling race and sex-based discrimination, harassment and victimisation across the armed forces, fire and rescue services, and police forces in England, Scotland and Wales. It is a priority programme in our strategic plan for 2025 to 2028. | | | Read the equality data guidance on our website | |
|
|
|
