· Head of new rights body turns on government
· Proposals seen as levelling down on discrimination
By Tania Branigan, political correspondent
Monday July 16, 2007, Guardian
Official equality watchdogs are in revolt against government reforms to discrimination laws, saying that they repudiate the findings of the Stephen Lawrence inquiry and will "do enormous damage" to disabled people.
The attacks from the Commission for Racial Equality and the Disability Rights Commission come amid anxiety about the government's commitment to promoting equal rights. Trevor Phillips, who heads the new unitary watchdog to be launched in October, has warned the government that his position will be "near unsustainable" unless it demonstrates that it will make tackling discrimination a priority.
Mr Phillips is understood to be particularly concerned by the issue of which cabinet minister will take the lead on equalities issues.
In a speech last week he also attacked the proposed law reforms, warning: "As a first shot at tackling persistent inequality, the review is a pretty poor piece of range-finding."
A spokeswoman for the new body, the Commission for Equality and Human Rights, said: "There have been conversations between the CEHR and the government. They are optimistic there will be a positive outcome."
Equality campaigners welcomed Labour's manifesto pledge to introduce a single equality act, simplifying a complex area of law. They hoped it would help to close the pay gap and end discrimination by making it easier for victims to seek redress and for businesses and public bodies to understand their responsibilities. But they fear that proposals in a recent consultation document will actually make people more vulnerable.
The biggest concern is reform of the legal obligation for public bodies to promote equality for disabled people, women and members of ethnic minorities in everything they do. Campaigners wanted to "level up" by extending the requirement to cover sexual orientation and age. Instead, they argue, it "levels down" by saying organisations should focus on outcomes and prioritise particular issues.
Bert Massie, who chairs the Disability Rights Commission, said: "This ... does to disability rights what a bulldozer does to a building. If it goes through as it is it will do enormous damage to disabled people and will unravel lot of successes of the last 10 years."
Razia Karim, head of legal policy at the Commission for Racial Equality, said: "The proposals on the public sector duty with regard to race equality are a repudiation of the [findings of the] Stephen Lawrence inquiry. We are seriously concerned by the proposals and are calling for a fundamental rethink." She said the proposals meant setting a limited number of targets focused on service delivery, and would not address issues such as police use of stop and search or the treatment of black and Asian prisoners.
Defending the proposals, which now go for consultation, the Department for Communities and Local Government said: "Our proposals will maintain and enhance robust protections whilst making the law simpler to use by those at risk of discrimination. They include significant new protections for all of us in our everyday lives, including new mothers, disabled people and older people."
Letter to the Guardian, not published
As anti-racist and black community organisations, we are also very concerned at the contents of the Discrimination Law Review green paper (Watchdogs criticise equality reform plans, 16 July 2007). The DLR was intended to deliver more effective equality law. Instead, as the CRE says, the recent Green Paper threatens to take us back to the pre-Lawrence report era. Not only does it propose no extension of measures that have began to make a difference such as the duty to promote race equality in the public sector, it proposes to replace a duty that is enforceable in court with 'principles' that have no teeth. It does nothing to improve equality in the private sector, in many areas will allow exemptions from the law to persist and will weaken, not strengthen enforcement of equality law. It needs to be radically improved to ensure that a single equality bill is fit to tackle endemic discrimination. Running over the summer period the 12 weeks consultation on the green paper runs the risk of not being worth the paper it is written on.
Milena Buyum, National Assembly Against Racism
Simon Woolley, Operation Black Vote
Eroll Walters, Black Londoners Forum
Koku Adomdza, 1990 Trust