Single Equalities Bill about to be published

Well – the much trailed Single Equalities Bill will be announced Wednesday or Thursday.

We know that dealing with discrimination based on age is in (hurrah) and there will be a public sector equality duty. Equality in provision of goods and services for the elderly will be staged – exact timing not sure.

Equal pay will be a biggee too – as there is still an unacceptable gap. We know the Government has baulked at mandatory pay audits in the private sector – so the hawks in the Cabinet won that one. Hope at the very least the Government does away with the requirement for a real comparator.

I am sure Gordon Brown promised that this type of stuff would be announced first to parliament – not leaked to the press. Wonder if he told Harriet that?

I suspect much of the Bill will be consensual – and we will all be glad when this magnum opus is completed. Much of it is tidying up and our discrimination law on the whole is pretty good. It’s making it stand up in the real world and changing culture that is the barrier. Still – it’s important to have the law to hang the behaviour around…

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I hope that Lib Dems will campaign for the closing of a major loophole in current law by repealing Section 21ZA of the Disability Discrimination Act 2005.This section gives a total exemption for airlines, amongst other transport providers, from the DDA.http://www.opsi.gov.uk/Acts/acts2005/ukpga_20050013_en_2#pb2-l1g5“21ZA Application of sections 19 to 21 to transport vehicles (1) Section 19(1) (a), (c) and (d) do not apply in relation to a case where the service is a transport service and, as provider of that service, the provider of services discriminates against a disabled person— (a) in not providing, or in providing, him with a vehicle; or (b) in not providing, or in providing, him with services when he is travelling in a vehicle provided in the course of the transport service.This has led to outrageous discrimination where an airline refused carriage to 23 young deaf passengers simply because they are deaf- without any safety justification whatsoever, as they could all read, lip-read and speak fluent English. No other country in the world gives airlines a total exemption from disability discrimination legislation, as the UK does- in other countries, such as the US and Canada, airlines are only allowed to refuse carriage to disabled people if there are genuine safety reasons to do so.107 different disability rights organisations, and hundreds of thousands of disabled people, have called for this law to be repealed, but the Govt. has refused to do so.It is also, I would argue, incompatible with the UN Convention on the Rights of Disabled People, which the UK has ratified, and which requires signatories to repeal laws which discriminate against disabled people.

Anonymous on 25th Jun 2008 at 10:56 pm said:

I hope that Lib Dems will campaign for the closing of a major loophole in current law by repealing Section 21ZA of the Disability Discrimination Act 2005.This section gives a total exemption for airlines, amongst other transport providers, from the DDA.http://www.opsi.gov.uk/Acts/acts2005/ukpga_20050013_en_2#pb2-l1g5“21ZA Application of sections 19 to 21 to transport vehicles (1) Section 19(1) (a), (c) and (d) do not apply in relation to a case where the service is a transport service and, as provider of that service, the provider of services discriminates against a disabled person— (a) in not providing, or in providing, him with a vehicle; or (b) in not providing, or in providing, him with services when he is travelling in a vehicle provided in the course of the transport service.This has led to outrageous discrimination where an airline refused carriage to 23 young deaf passengers simply because they are deaf- without any safety justification whatsoever, as they could all read, lip-read and speak fluent English. No other country in the world gives airlines a total exemption from disability discrimination legislation, as the UK does- in other countries, such as the US and Canada, airlines are only allowed to refuse carriage to disabled people if there are genuine safety reasons to do so.107 different disability rights organisations, and hundreds of thousands of disabled people, have called for this law to be repealed, but the Govt. has refused to do so.It is also, I would argue, incompatible with the UN Convention on the Rights of Disabled People, which the UK has ratified, and which requires signatories to repeal laws which discriminate against disabled people.

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