Great post, with pictures :-) at We Mixed Our Drinks: This is why I believe in equality. Ends with:This is why equality is important. It's not something to do with wanting to wipe out men. It's not something it was okay to stand for in the 1970s, with no need to stand for it now. Hearing these women speak we were left in no doubt that equality and respect is not something we've achieved. It's something we have to keep on fighting...

Equality and human rights law may make it illegal for schools to force girls to wear skirts — because uniforms discriminate against transsexuals. Official guidance from the Equality and Human Rights Commission warns schools that insisting that girls wear skirts may breach the rights of those who feel compelled to live as boys. The watchdog, which has enforcement powers against public bodies that break equality law, says “requiring pupils to wear gender-specific clothes is potentially unlawful”. It notes that “pupils born female with gender dysphoria experienced great discomfort being forced to wear stereotypical girls’ clothes — for example a skirt”. The guidance has been produced in expectation of the government’s Equality Bill coming into force this autumn. The bill,...

Here’s your starter for ten as we experiment with a new Saturday slot posing a view for debate: Belief in equality is, as the preamble to the Lib Dems’ constitutions states, one of the fundamental values of the party. But, as with all values, equality can mean different things to different people. There has long been tension between liberals who believe the role of government is to aim for equality of opportunity for everyone, and liberals who believe government must promote equality of outcomes. The former will tend to stress the importance of education as the chief means by which individuals can better themselves and improve their lot; while the latter will argue that yes, education is vital, but ultimately life chances are determined by income – and the poorest in...

Paul Blomfield, Labour’s Parliamentary Candidate for Sheffield Central, attended a demonstration yesterday outside the Town Hall to oppose the Lib Dem Council’s decision to withdraw funding from Sheffield Race Equality Council. Paul Blomfield sharply criticised the Council’s decision to withdraw funding from Sheffield Race Equality Council saying: “For 42 years Sheffield Race Equality Council has played an important role in challenging racism and supporting those facing discrimination. It’s completely wrong for the Council to pull the Race Equality’s Council funding and withdraw their support, particularly at a time when race relations have been put under strain after the election of a BNP MEP.”...

The United Kingdom has made great strides in bringing equality to it's citizens. Whilst I might not agree with exactly how it's done sometimes (I'm big on ensuring legislation defends free speech), I still wholeheartedly support the reasons for equality legislation. This is quite simply about ensuring all citizens are equal before public institutions. This has come despite the usual religious opposition to the liberation of women and the GLBT community. On the one hand they defend the laws protected them against religious hatred and on the other they attack laws protecting those who wish to live their lives in a way they disapprove. This sort of hypocrisy is to be expected. But the Pope, who expects us to fork out £20 million for his upcoming state visit, has crossed a line. When...

Pope Benedict XVI has attacked British society and in particular our equality legislation. In a letter addressed to the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales, the pope criticised UK legislation for creating "limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs". Of course, what the Pope means is the law now prevents adoption agencies from discriminating against gay couples and the Equality Bill may mean the Catholic Church can no longer discriminate on grounds of sexuality or...

• Bishops told to fight moves with 'missionary zeal'• Secular groups preparing protests for September tripPope Benedict XVI marked the announcement of his first papal visit to Britain with an unprecedented attack on the ­government's equality legislation yesterday, claiming it threatened religious freedom and ran contrary to "natural law".Speaking at the Vatican to visiting Catholic bishops of England and Wales, he described changes to the law as unjust and urged them to invoke "missionary zeal" to resist them.The comments came during a five-yearly trip to the Vatican by the bishops, during which they made presentations on their concerns about the place of religion in an increasingly secular society.The pope's broadside appeared to be aimed squarely at recent legislation that...

By synthesising old Tory and traditional left ideas a genuinely egalitarian society can be achievedTraditional Toryism justified social inequality. Old Labour believed in equality of outcomes. But today both parties have eschewed their earlier approaches and aspire instead to "equality of opportunity". For Gordon Brown, it is "the whole of social justice"; indeed equalising opportunity has captured progressive thinking and legislation for the last 30 years.However, as the report by the National Equality Panel published today makes clear, this approach has failed and needs to be radically called into question. Inequality has risen, not fallen. Over those three decades the net income ratio of the top 10% to the bottom 10% has risen by more than a quarter. Governments have tended to tackle...

John Denham Unveils Next Steps In Promoting Equality For All. MP John Denham has re-affirmed the Government’s steadfast commitment to tackling race inequality. Yesterday, in his role as Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, he outlined plans to build on the significant achievements by pledging to tackle inequality wherever it exists. Published yesterday, Tackling Race Inequality: A Statement on Race details the consistent progress that has been made to tackle racism and secure race equality in recent years, highlights the remaining challenges and the need to broaden the focus of equalities work to respond to new and emerging issues. Mr Denham said: “The Government has an absolute commitment to eradicating racism and promoting race equality: a commitment...

Lying in bed watching the news - well blow me - Harriet has done a u-turn. Hurrah! Harriet has suddenly been converted and announced that the mandatory retirement age is no longer to be compulsory - and I assume she will put it through in the Equality Bill - which is currently in the Lords. Shame when I brought this forward at Second Reading of the Equality Bill in the Commons she was incapable of agreeing with me then. As  I said from the front bench to Harriet during the Equality Bill Second Reading on May 11: "My last point about age discrimination and matters mandatory is that I cannot for the life of me understand why the Government have retained a mandatory retirement age. It seems completely wrong. I am surprised, as it is clearly discriminatory to decide on an arbitrary age as a...

I wish to alert you to amendments to the Equality Bill that are to be voted on in the House of Lords on 14th Jan which potentially will take away the right of every citizen to live according to their religious faiths and consciences, especially with regard to employment and the way their places of worship operate. The Equality Bill will strike out all exemptions on the basis of religion which will mean that all will have to conform to secularist values and ideology. Whether in our places of worship, the workplace and even the home. Please sign the on- line petition to the Prime minister asking for the removal of Schedule 9, Paragraph 2, subsection 8 of the Equality Bill which can be found at: http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/harryhammond/This petition reaches out not just to Christians,...

The Celtic League's complaint to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (see below) seems to have stirred up a fair bit of press coverage. Disgusted Cornish complain to race chiefs about being called 'inbred' 'Anti-Cornish' comments condemned If you feel strongly about this issue and would like to add your voice to the complaint please do contact the EHRC as well as your local MP and Councillors (as well as anyone else you think may be interested). Some suggestions as to who to copy your complaint to are: The Council of Europe Equality South West The Council for Racial Equality in Cornwall The letter from the Celtic League. Condemnation of use of the word ‘inbred’ to describe the Cornish I am writing to you on behalf of the Celtic League to ask that you offer support for...

More is emerging on Cranmer’s report last week on the intervention of the European Commission into the business of Parliament. The Government were told that its Equality Bill must subordinate the religious conscience to homosexual equality. The Commission said: ‘exceptions to the principle of non-discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation for religious employers are broader than that permitted by the directive’.Now Mark Harper MP has accused the European Commission of lobbying Parliament on the run-up to this week’s vote. An amendment had been proposed to the Equality Bill by Labour MP David Drew which would have protected the religious liberty of churches and would have safeguarded the right of religious organisations to restrict the appointment of key staff to people...

A message of support from Ofsted for LGBT History Month. Ofsted is setting up its own LGBT staff forum as part of its single equality scheme.Ofsted’s strategic plan puts equality and diversity at the heart of everything it does. And that commitment is not only about ensuring equality of opportunity for our workforce, but also that the organisations we inspect and regulate fulfil their responsibilities to promote equality and diversity.‘We are pleased to share celebrating the contributions and achievements of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people through dedicated events like the LGBT History Month and to combat prejudice and discrimination,’ says Sonia Gandhi, Head of Equality and Human Rights.A month of events to celebrate the lives and achievements of the LGBT community...

The Labour Government’s Equality Bill, announced in the Queen’s speech, will actively discriminate against all white people in business and put large companies under a legal obligation to employ Asians or blacks rather than whites.The Catholic Church has also warned that other clauses could lead to public displays of Christmas being banned as offensive to other religions. The Equality Bill was one of a set of 13 bills and two draft bills mapped out in the brief opening of Parliament this week.In terms of the Equality Act, companies will be “encouraged” to favour black and Asian candidates over white people when recruiting. In addition, where companies have a choice between equally qualified men and women, they are obliged to employ the woman.To enforce compliance with that...

There has been a lot made of the capabilities approach to equality and fairness (see, for example, James Purnell's move to Demos). It has a relatively long heritage, most notably through Amartya Sen (though see this Prospect debate for some other authors and critiques of the main works). In the UK, the Equalities Review of 2007 set out a new single equality concept, rather than one that talked of equality of opportunity or of...

The role of religion in public life comes under the microscope on Monday, November 2, when Equality South West and Faithnetsouthwest launch a new regional equality network. The network starts just weeks after a South West MP called for a Devon nurse to be allowed to wear her crucifix to work. Equality South West senior equality development officer Colette Bennett told the PRSD: “Religion and people’s beliefs often only make the news for negative reasons so we’re hoping to redress that balance by promoting the positives they bring to society.” Alistair Beattie, chief executive of Faithnetsouthwest, said: “We’re looking at increasing awareness of different religions and beliefs and promoting dialogue and good relations between people from different religions and the wider...

The case for equality is overwhelming. So what policy-instuments do we need, to make it happen? I advocate the following two, as key parts of the process: • A maximum income differential in percentage terms between boss and lowest-paid employee in each company. And the differential should be narrowed in percentage terms each year. It should never be allowed to grow in absolute terms at all. (Similar laws, though just slightly less radical, are in place right now in (e.g.) Denmark.)• Wage rises should be on a cash-amount basis, not a percentage basis. In other words, everyone in a given organisation would get the same wage rise, each year, in monetary terms. Over time, this would reduce the percentage difference between high and low earning employees very...

Public Sector ‘Equality Duty’ aims at ‘Culture Change’ Act now to stand by Christian organisations in your Community Consultation closing date 30 September 2009 (for England) Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) in the Equality Bill is to be extended to cover age, pregnancy and maternity, sexual orientation, religion or belief, and gender reassignment. CCFON objects in principle to the PSED extending to sexual orientation, religion or belief and gender reassignment, noting the threat to Christian Groups who will face a stark choice between eliminating the Christian element of their projects or services and being shut down for lack of vital public sector funding. Under the proposed provisions public bodies such as local authorities, schools and health bodies will be able as part of...

Equality South West is training ‘equality ambassadors’ to ensure public bodies meet their legal and moral obligations to promote equality and end discrimination. Examples the organisation gives of how public bodies have failed sections of the community include one council which kept the key to an accessible toilet in an office that was inaccessible to wheelchair users; another which withdrew funding from a women’s domestic violence support service; and several councils which effectively barred disabled drivers by introducing ticket barriers to car parks. Equality South West’s Colette Bennett told the PRSD: “All these problems could have been avoided if the councils had followed the correct procedures and assessed the potential impact of these decisions before...

If you have been reading your papers for conference, you might have noticed something new. Tucked away at the back of the policy papers is a page headed ‘Policy Equality Impact Assessment’. If you work in the public sector, you may already be familiar with these, as they have been compulsory in schools, hospitals and other public institutions for some time now. As a political party, we are not expected to complete such assessments as a matter of course, but have started to introduce them as a sign of our own commitment to the principles of diversity, equality and best practice. I’m really pleased to report that the Federal Policy Committee (FPC) through the work of Debbie Enever has led the way by introducing them on policy papers. A lonely side of A4 at the back of a long policy...

I went to an excellent garden party at Hackney Liberal Democrats yesterday afternoon where I learnt that there is solid data that supports the notion that unequal societies are worse for everybody, whether the Lib Dems narrative does or doesn't support that and not to attempt to drive in London on a Sunday. Ever.Geoffrey J Payne (as opposed to Geoff Payne) is very good at putting together the most interesting speaking events and he had invited Richard Wilkinson & Kate Pickett, the author of 'the Spirit Level: Why more equal societies almost always do better' and my husband*, Neil Stockley, on the extent to which the Lib Dems current narrative is one of equality. Neil will be putting what he had to say about our narrative (the upshot being our narrative is not really one of equality,...

Whenever some lentil bothering, Grauniad reading equality type starts banging on about rights, I find myself with an urge to give their head some equality with the toe of my boot.Where is the equality in the Grandparents of a child being excluded from adoption in favour of a gay couple? Then being threatened with being cut off from them if they complained; all under the guise of equality.The five-year-old boy and his four-year-old sister were being looked after by their grandparents because their mother, a recovering drug addict, was not considered capable.But social workers stepped in after allegedly deciding that the couple, who are aged 59 and 46, were "too old" to look after the children.They were allegedly stripped of their carer's rights and informed they would be barred from seeing...

Just watched Trevor Phillips on Andrew Marr saying that tomorrow theEquality Commission are going to publish (finally) their report into unequal pay in the financial services sector - and 'it's shocking'! No kidding? We know that - so presumably it's even worse than we thought and women are not only getting unequal pay and unequal bonuses (setting aside the issue of size of bonus momentarily) but the differential will be staggering. So much so - that the Equality Commission says that if the City doesn't come to heel - they will have to use their statutory powers. Oooooooh! Warm wards indeed.And yet - the biggest flunk this century in terms of ending pay inequality comes from the Equality Commission itself who rant on about the importance of the Equality Bill currently going through...

Just watched Trevor Phillips on Andrew Marr saying that tomorrow the Equality Commission are going to publish (finally) their report into unequal pay in the financial services sector - and 'it's shocking'! No kidding? We know that - so presumably it's even worse than we thought and women are not only getting unequal pay and unequal bonuses (setting aside the issue of size of bonus momentarily) but the differential will be staggering. So much so - that the Equality Commission says that if the City doesn't come to heel - they will have to use their statutory powers. Oooooooh! Warm wards indeed. And yet - the biggest flunk this century in terms of ending pay inequality comes from the Equality Commission itself who rant on about the importance of the Equality Bill currently going through...

Trevor Phillips, the chairman of the troubled Equality and Human Rights Commission, today breaks his silence following strong criticism of his leadership and admits there were "serious managerial oversights" in setting up the controversial watchdog and "painful lessons" learned.In the wake of calls for him to step down and following a number of high-level resignations, Phillips says he "deeply" regrets the departure of key people, but pledges the commission will fight on to "propel equality from the margins to the mainstream".Writing in the Guardian, he hits back at claims of conflict between his £110,000-a-year part-time role and his private race consultancy work, though admits he may have been "naive" for failing to see how it could be "made to appear improper by a hostile media".And...

As you may know, the author of this blog is deeply interested in gender equality and, indeed, has – with colleagues – conducted academic research on the subject, as well as into issues of ethnicity (and gender, e.g. South Asian women entrepreneurs). Radical/progressive conservatives like me are keen to promote policies that will help both women and ethnic minorities, as well as the white working-class, overcome the unlevel playing field that they face. So I was appalled to learn (hat tip: Iain Dale) that the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party and Minister for Equality Harriet Harman, who has made much of the fact that she is interested in promoting gender equality, is in a position to give her husband a helping hand to get a seat:  Labour has a system whereby if an MP...

Danny Finkelstein is usually very astute, but here I think he misses the point. He’s talking about Amartya Sen’s views on “equality of capability” (as discussed by James Purnell), which is intended to be less money-centric than equality of outcome and more substantive than equality of opportunity:Sen’s idea is that the correct goal for those seeking to further social justice is to remove barriers to people living the life that they choose and to give them the wherewithal to achieve what they can. Illiteracy, poor nutrition and discrimination are examples of ways in which people’s capabilities are damaged.Danny likes this, but is concerned about the word ‘equality’ in this context:Purnell used this word for political reasons, to reconnect Blairites with the Left. But it is...

The Christian Institute says,'An MP has attempted to use the Equality Bill to force the Scout Association to scrap the age-old tradition of new entrants pledging allegiance to God. Liberal Democrat MP Dr Evan Harris says the Scout Association is discriminating against children and leaders who do not believe in God by requiring them to take the vow.In 1997 the Scout Association published its Equal Opportunities Policy underlining that scouting is open to all.Dr Harris, an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society, tabled an amendment to ban the pledge as MPs debated the Bill at Committee Stage. He later withdrew it.His attempt was criticised by Mark Harper MP, who said: “The hon. Gentleman is creating fictional problems that do not exist in the real world and is asking us to...

An editorial in today's Times argues impeccably about assumptions that have been at work in the Equality and Human Rights Commission but to an unsupported conclusion. The conclusion is unsupported because it doesn't follow from the arguments preceding it. Endorsing the principle of civic equality, the Times leader compares it unfavourably with the form of multiculturalism practised by London's former Mayor. It continues:Once you treat people's primary identity as membership of a designated group — ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or some other division — then you encourage the notion that the loudest advocates of those sectional interests are the voice of authenticity... Mr [Trevor] Phillips should be applauded for his simple, unexceptionable and acute observation that for...