Equality Act 2010 

Stonewall warmly welcomes the new Equality Act which received Royal Assent on 8 April 2010. It has the potential to secure greater fairness and equality for lesbian, gay and bisexual people across Britain and could see marked improvements for gay people in a range of key public services, from policing to education and from housing to health services.

Simplifying the law

The Act updates our complex existing framework of anti-discrimination laws and will make it simpler for individuals, businesses and organisations to understand and access the law in one place.
The new Equality Act will eventually replace the existing legal protections covering employment - the Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003 - and businesses and services, including schools - the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007. Importantly, people will continue to have the same level of protection in these areas.

Stonewall is committed to working with the Government after the general election to secure full implementation of all parts of the Act which impact on lesbian, gay and bisexual people.

• Read more about the Equality Act’s passage through Parliament here 
  
  
• Read the Equality Act here 

The Act will introduce important new measures too, including an ‘equality duty’ on public bodies to proactively promote equality across the piece and permitting civil partnerships in religious buildings, where religious denominations wish to do this.

Key new areas of the Equality Act

A single public duty

Sections 149 - 157

The new public sector equality duty will be the missing piece in the jigsaw for full legal protection for gay people across Britain, complementing existing legislation in employment and goods and services with a more proactive approach to tackling discrimination. Stonewall firmly believes that lesbian, gay and bisexual taxpayers should be able to approach the public services they help to fund with complete confidence. We warmly welcome an integrated equality duty that will help to make this a reality.

The Government has said that the equality duty will take effect from April 2011.

The new duty - replacing the current separate duties for race, disability and gender - could make a very real difference by encouraging public bodies actively to accommodate the needs of their gay service-users in the design and delivery of public services like education, policing and housing. Public bodies will have to think in advance about the needs of different service users, including gay people, and set out what they’re doing to address those needs. This will involve consulting and involving local service users. It could have a transformative effect both on gay people’s lives in areas where they have often faced discrimination and on the cost-effectiveness of the delivery of public services.

Why do we need a single equality duty?

All too often lesbian, gay and bisexual people receive second-class treatment from public services. A new integrated duty could make a significant difference to gay people’s experience of public services, helping public bodies deliver fairer and more efficient services. For example:

• The duty could result in health services taking steps to meet the particular needs of lesbian, gay and bisexual people and encouraging them to access services. Twice as many lesbian and bisexual women over 25 have never had a cervical smear test compared to the general female population. The duty could help authorities target screening to lesbian and bisexual women, improving service take-up with long-term benefits for women’s health and the potential cost savings associated with preventive healthcare measures.
  
  
• The duty could see wider take-up of measures to promote safety and raise awareness about hate crime, for example with measures to encourage gay people to report hate crimes. YouGov polling commissioned by Stonewall (with Home Office support) found that while one in five gay people have been the victim of a hate crime in the last three years, three in four did not report it to the police because they did not expect it would be taken seriously.
  
  
• The duty could lead to schools reviewing anti-bullying strategies to ensure that they address the issue of homophobic bullying. YouGov polling for Stonewall also reveals that nine in ten secondary school teachers and two in five primary school teachers say pupils experience homophobic bullying in their schools, even if they are not gay.

Stonewall believes that the equality duty should extend to all public bodies. However we have always said that the duty should be implemented in a proportionate manner, with clear and targeted guidance to help public bodies.

We support a focus on practical outcomes, not something which becomes an administrative burden. Many of the 300 public bodies that Stonewall works with are already taking active steps to ensure the services they provide are fair for all, focused on practical outcomes that make a difference. We welcome the public sector equality duty which will see such good practice expanded.

We look forward to development of the Specific Duties after the election, which will underpin the Equality Act helping public bodies implement practical steps to fulfil their obligations.

Civil partnerships in religious premises

Section 202

Stonewall warmly welcomes measures in the Equality Act which will enable religious organisations who wish to perform civil partnership to do so. At the moment the law bans civil partnership ceremonies on religious premises.

Stonewall led calls for a permissive approach to enable the various religious denominations who now wish to perform and bless civil partnerships in their buildings – including the Quakers, Liberal Judaism and the Unitarian Church - to be able to do so.

The Equality Act makes clear that this will not be mandatory. We were persuaded by the argument put forward by a number of religious organisations that they see this matter as a compelling issue of religious freedom. The current law prevents them from celebrating committed, loving relationships and it is right that it be revised. There was widespread support for this issue from all sides of the House of Lords.

The detail of these measures will be set out in Regulations in the months ahead, following consultation. We look forward to this timely change in the law.

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