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Equality Act 2010 (Consequential Amendments, Saving and Supplementary Provisions) Order 2010

My Lords, the underlying theme of the order is to make effective the provisions of the Act in line with its main intention of simplification and consistency. The changes that the order makes fall into three broad categories. First, some of the changes involve corrections or updates to the Equality Act 2010 itself. Article 3 makes amendments to Section 87 of the Act. Section 87 enables the Secretary of State to give directions using powers under the Education Act 1996 to require a school to comply with its duties not to discriminate against pupils under Section 85. The reason for the amendment is to refer to the corresponding Scottish legislation to ensure that the procedure works for Scotland as well as for England and Wales. Article 4 makes changes to Section 94, which explains what is meant by various terms used in Chapter 2—on further and higher education—of Part 6. The amendment is needed to reflect concerns from interested parties that there needs to be a definition of ““conferment”” in the context of awarding qualifications. Article 5 makes changes to Section 108. Section 108 prohibits discrimination after relationships have ended, and the amendment to subsection (4) is intended to replicate existing law. That is to say that even if a person becomes disabled after the relationship has ended, the duty to make a reasonable adjustment still applies. The current Act could be interpreted as meaning that the duty arose only if the person already had a disability at the time the relationship ended. The amendment puts that right. Article 6 and 7 make changes to Sections 132, 134 and 135. Those provisions cover, among other things, the period for calculating arrears where successful claims are made about equal pay or pensions cases in Scotland, in the case of a person with an incapacity or one involving a fraud or error. The effect of the amendment is that the five-year limit for calculating arrears may be extended if it includes time during which the claimant suffered incapacity or was induced by the fraud or error not to raise the claim, subject to a maximum reckonable period of 20 years. The amendments enable the provisions to work correctly in Scotland and reflect the existing position under the Equal Pay Act 1970. Article 9 amends Part 9 of Schedule 3 to the Equality Act to reproduce an amendment made to Section 19 of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 by the Rail Passengers’ Rights and Obligations Regulations 2010, after the Equality Act received Royal Assent. Those provisions of the Equality Act restate provisions of the DDA that provide for exceptions to the duty not to discriminate in relation to the provision of transport services for disabled people. The amendment needs to be made to ensure that, when they come into force, the Equality Act provisions are exactly the same as the existing DDA provisions which will be repealed. To reassure noble Lords, I can state that the amendment does not in any way reduce the rights of disabled persons, but simply ensures that there is no overlap between domestic equality legislation and European transport legislation protecting the rights of disabled people in air and rail transport. Article 10 amends Schedule 11 to the Equality Act to remove a reference to the Learning and Skills Council, which was abolished just before the Equality Act was enacted. Articles 8 and 11 update certain provisions to refer to EU law rather than Community law, as a result of the coming into force of the Lisbon treaty. The second category of amendments is to reflect adjustments needed to the existing equality duties to reflect the introduction of new key concepts by the Equality Act. The existing gender duty, race duty and disability duty will be replaced by the new public sector equality duty in Sections 149 to 157 of the Equality Act, but not until some time after October. Therefore, the existing provisions in the Sex Discrimination Act, Race Relations Act and Disability Discrimination Act need to be kept in force for the time being. However, the existing definitions of sex, race and disability discrimination, victimisation and harassment in those Acts are slightly different to those in the Equality Act. Articles 14 to 16 therefore update the relevant provisions of the Sex Discrimination Act, Race Relations Act and Disability Discrimination Act to reflect the new terminology. This will make it easier for public authorities to operate, as they will not need to use one set of definitions for public sector equality duties and another for all their other equality-related functions. The final category of amendments is made up of consequential amendments to other legislation and makes up the bulk of the order. These amendments are set out in Schedules 1 and 2 to the order, which will amend Schedules 26 and 27 of the Act. The vast majority either replace references to legislation which is going to be repealed, such as the Sex Discrimination Act, with references to the Equality Act, or repeal those references if there are no equivalent new provisions. There are also a couple of provisions that will harmonise the law where previously it applied inconsistently to different protected categories. These provisions comprise amendments to the Estate Agents Act 1979 set out in paragraphs 4 to 6 in Schedule 1 to the order. Enforcement action will now be able to be taken where an estate agent is found to have been discriminatory on any protected ground, not just sex and race discrimination as currently provided for. Amendments set out in paragraphs 44 to 47 of Schedule 1 to the order affect the School Standards and Framework Act 1998. These will enable school adjudicators, when making a decision, to take into account the non-discrimination duties of a governing body or local authority in relation to all the protected characteristics applicable to schools, not just duties related to sex, race and disability, as is the case now. To sum up, the overall effect of the order is minor and technical, and there are only minor substantive effects. However, it completes the process started by the Bill. The Merits Committee and the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments have considered the order and neither committee wishes to draw any issue to the attention of the House. This order is a practical sign of the Government’s commitment to bringing the Act into force. I ask the Committee to consider it for approval.