Controversial new law on discrimination planned
June 27, 2008
Yesterday Harriet Harman announced plans for a new Equalities Bill, expected to be introduced in the next Parliament which starts in November. Whilst some of the plans sounded like a good idea and were welcomed by many, certain controversial elements appear to have caused a backlash from members of the public, if the listeners of Radio 1 and visitors to the BBC website are anything to go by.
The Bill will replace existing pieces of legislation that make it unlawful to discriminate on the grounds of age, sex, race, religion or belief, disability or sexual orientation, which will hopefully make it much simpler for employers to understand and manage this within their organisations.
However, the Bill will also allow employers to use ‘positive discrimination’, whereby staff can be appointed on the basis of their gender or race, if they have the same skills. The idea is that this will increase diversity in workplaces as employers will start to introduce it without the risk of discrimination claims. I think this is the most ridiculous thing I have heard in a long time and I’m convinced it is going to backfire even more than the statutory dispute resolution regulations have done.
With this new law, an employer can choose a woman over a man simply because they want more women, as long as the candidates are similar in ability. But they could also lawfully choose a man if they wanted to, so how is this going to stop those bosses who, like Alan Sugar said a while back, want to only employ men because they think women might drop them in it when they want to have a baby? The answer is, it’s not going to stop them at all. And how are employers going to prove that the candidates they were choosing between had equal abilities? Yes, they can show the criteria they used for selection but I can imagine a huge grey area over how similar they need to be and I think that lots of employment tribunals will take place because of this point. There are always ways in which you can distinguish candidates because you measure them on various areas relating to the job and some will be better than others when measured across the board.
We’re being told constantly that there’s a ‘war for talent’ and we need to concentrate on finding and developing the best people to make businesses prosper in these difficult economic times. Surely we just want the best people possible then, regardless of who they are, where they’re from or how old they are? There are definite business reasons for having a diverse workforce, but I think trying to force this at the expense of millions of people who will just feel let down and disadvantaged themselves is not the right way to go. What might be more useful is guidelines from the Government about how to recruit and retain top quality staff from any background without discriminating, and better promotion of the diversity agenda, with information resources and other schemes. I know these things already exist but surely putting some sort of statutory commitment to these arrangements would be a better starting point than introducing yet more confusing and potentially damaging legislation? Also, if we’re trying to make sure men and women have equal opportunities for a career and salaries, then why is it still only women who can take a year’s maternity leave?
I don’t know what the answer is to the gender pay gap and inequality of opportunities for all people, but I’m just not convinced that this part of the Equalities Bill is it, and from comments I heard on the radio yesterday and the ‘have your say section’ on the BBC, I don’t think I’m alone in my opinion. There were lots of great comments to read, but I think my favourite one was this:
As an old woman from an ethnic minority I would like Harriet Harman’s job. I should be allowed to have it as I’m old, a woman, and also from an ethnic minority so I score on all points. I have no qualifications however but neither has she by the sound of it!
This is typical of many of the comments so far, so although the Government may be well-meaning in this development, they don’t seem to have communicated it well enough to win over the people that matter – the voters.
What do you think of this legislation? I’d be really interested to hear other people’s thoughts.
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