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Equality Bill a ‘bureaucratic nightmare’ warns CBI

Harriet Harman laid the Equality White Paper before Parliament at the end of June aiming to consolidate the existing equality provisions from other Acts (estimated at more than 100 independent provisions) and ‘streamline and strengthen the law’ by introducing ‘positive action to address inequality in the workplace’.

The Bill will give public bodies an overarching equality duty forcing them to publish data on gender pay gaps, levels of ethnic minority and disabled persons employed, ban employers gagging pay discussions between employees and allow them to positively discriminate in selecting a minority candidate over a majority candidate.

In a move to extend the influence of the legislation, private industry firms bidding for work with Government Departments would be required to demonstrate the same standards – something that the Government has also said it will do with skills training and Trades Union membership in a separate announcement on the skills agenda – a move that the TUC has described as giving workers ‘access to basic training at work, to be able to join a trades Union and to learn about the law and how it relates to their work’.

The CBI pointed out that the original intention of the legislation was to simplify the law but instead the new Bill proposed a ‘bureaucratic nightmare’, the TUC described the proposals as ‘landmark legislation’ and several senior commentators lined up to wonder whether the Bill will actually achieve anything – the Institute of Employment Studies were one body quoted in the press as saying that the Bill wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference to deep rooted employment discrimination against minority groups.