PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Equality (26 January 2021)

To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, pursuant to the Answer of 18 January 2021 to Question 137304 on Equality, what the evidential basis is for her assessment in that Answer that the socio-economic duty provided for by the Equality Act 2010 could become a general due regard duty with the potential to become a tick-box exercise, complied with to minimise the risk of legal challenge rather than to promote real change in social mobility.

Asked by:
Marsha De Cordova (Labour)

The socio-economic duty in the Equality Act is, as the legislation stands, a “due regard” duty, and therefore similar in form to the public sector equality duty, which is also a “due regard” duty.

The way that the public sector equality duty is used by some public authorities, as a tick-box exercise, has been criticised on various occasions, including in the 2013 Hayward Review of the Duty; by the 2015-16 House of Lords Committee on the Equality Act 2010 and Disability; and in a number of court judgments, for instance London and Quadrant Housing Trust v Patrick (2019).

For these reasons this Government, like its Conservative predecessors, thinks that it is better to focus on specific policies and practical actions that will deliver real change in tackling poverty and promoting social mobility – for example in education, through a reformed welfare system, and in following through on our manifesto commitment to greater developmental devolution in England and rebalancing the economy with the introduction of schemes such as the Towns Fund.

Answered by:
Mrs Kemi Badenoch (Conservative)
3 February 2021