Dismantling our equality infrastructure

14/09/2012

Dismantling our equality infrastructure

Touchstone Blog

The attacks on equality have come so thick and fast from this government it is
sometimes hard to keep up. We've produced briefings, guidance and monitoring
advice on the impact on women, disabled people, BME workers and others of
austerity and public spending cuts. But what some people are not aware of is how
the government is, in parallel, dismantling the whole infrastructure that
supports those who still suffer significant inequalities linked to their gender,
race, disability, age, sexual orientation etc.In the next year, important
protections in the Equality Act 2010 are likely to be repealed because they are
considered “unnecessary or disproportionate burdens on business”. The
proposed repeals are supposedly in response to the Red Tape Challenge. However, most of the several thousand responses to the Equality Act pages of the Red Tape Challenge website called for this piece of legislation to be left alone or strengthened.