Last month, a ‘red tape’ consultation closed on the subject of the Equality Act 2010, having attracted over 5,430 responses.
The Act brings together a number of pieces of equality legislation, protecting people from discrimination on the grounds of disability, age, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage/civil partnership and pregnancy/maternity. It covers employment, education, access to goods, services and transport, and buying or renting land or property.
Although relatively new, the Act is one of the topics under scrutiny in the Government’s Red tape challenge, which aims to reduce the 21,000 statutory rules and regulations currently in force
Ministers will have three months to work out which regulations they want to keep and why. But – as the website says, “Here’s the most important bit – the default presumption will be that burdensome regulations will go. If Ministers want to keep them, they have to make a very good case for them to stay.”
