This is something we will be hearing a lot more about over the next few months and years. At last the government has introduced legislation that seeks to rationalise the current miasma of anti-discrimination legislation and bring it all into one piece of legislation.
At the moment, in the workplace environment, six types of discrimination are outlawed – age, race, sex (gender), sexual orientation, religious belief and disability. Each piece of legislation behind each type is different in certain respects so a new Act that contains all the relevant definitions, duties and defences is to be welcomed. Whether, in practice, the Equality Act (if it gets that far) will be is another matter. Undoubtedly it will change as it goes through Parliament but here are the current headlines