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Equality Bill - passage through Parliament

This page outlines some of the changes and clarifications made to the Equality Bill (now the Equality Act 2010) during its passage through Parliament. There is more on the Act generally on my Equality Act 2010 page.

• The Government has accepted an amendment that the Bill expressly define 'substantial' as meaning 'more than minor or trvial' (rather than 'very large'). This reflects how 'substantial' is currently interpreted in practice in the two places where it is important, namely:
  • definition of disability as to whether an impairment has a 'substantial' adverse effect, and in the
  • reasonable adjustment duty as to whether there is a 'substantial' disadvantage so as to trigger the duty (see on the amendment in relation to employment, services and education). Though it just reflects current practice, the new express definition is very welcome to help guard against the higher courts perhaps in future giving an alternative meaning to this term whose role in the legislation is extremely important.
• It has been made clearer that the reasonable adjustment duty in education is anticipatory.

Lords Committee Stage - January-February 2010

Some important changes or clarifications in the House of Lords Committee:

• Further changes to the new clause to discourage pre-employment enquiries on health.
• Schools and LEAs are to have a duty to provide an auxiliary aid or service where reasonable. (More on new auxiliary aid duty...)
• Another change on education relates to exam boards.
• A new clause makes clear that a disabled person does not have to contribute to the costs of making a reasonable adjustment. (More on reasonable adjustment costs...)
• There has been a change to the public equality duty to recognise the special needs of disabled people (More on public equality duty change...)
• Further Ministerial clarification that current objective test for direct discrimination remains despite new "because of" wording. (More on Ministerial statements about direct discrimination wording...)

Commons Committee and Report Stages - 2009

Some important changes were made to the Bill at the Commons Report Stage in December 2009, and also at the Commons Committee stage in summer 2009:

• There was a major improvement at Report Stage to the clause on 'Discrimination arising from disability' which aims to reverse the House of Lords decision in the Malcolm case;
• insertion of a new clause on multiple discrimination.

An updated version of the Bill containing the amendments made in the House of Commons (i.e. up to 2nd December 2009), is at www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200910/ldbills/020/2010020.pdf.

Other issues discussed at Committee Stage, sometimes with Ministerial clarifications of what the Bill is intended to mean, included association and perception, insisting on 'proportionate' (rather than 'appropriate and necessary') in the objective justification test, relevance of subjective perceptions in defining harassment, direct discrimination, Tribunal recommendations, representative actions, exclusion of armed services and most volunteers, and the public equality duty.

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Last updated 14th July, 2010