During debates in the House of Commons and House of Lords regarding repeal of the EHRC’s ‘General Duty’, debate centred on the ‘political’ or ‘symbolic’ significance of the duty.  It is of course foolish to treat something with political or symbolic significance as unimportant.  As Lord Low noted during Committee stage in the Lords ‘if its inclusion has symbolic value, is it not the case that its removal will have symbolic value also?’ The approach government has sought to t...

The Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill will soon return to the House of Commons, led by the Liberal Democrat Minister Jo Swinson MP on behalf of the Liberal Democrat Business Secretary Vince Cable MP. 

It seems very probable that the coalition government will seek to overturn the amendment to s57 of the Bill won by Baroness Jane Campbell last week and supported by prominent Liberal Democrat Peers to prevent repeal of the ‘General Duty’ of the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

T...

I’ve spent the past few months working with Parliamentarians to seek to put a stop to government plans to repeal the EHRC’s ‘General Duty’.  I won’t go back over the arguments why, but those arguments did prove persuasive last week when the House of Lords voted 217 – 166 in support of Baroness Jane Campbell’s amendment to keep the General Duty on the statute book.   The Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill, as amended, now goes back to the House of Commons.

I occupy a peculiar...

Many will feel morally conflicted about some prisoners having the vote, but it is important to rise above the noise and recognise that the issue has been primed to achieve other ends.   

Those calling for a UK Bill of Rights have come to do so under the intellectual window-dressing of ‘subsidiarity’ – that the protection of human rights should be primarily a matter for nation States.  This is an entirely respectable aim which should enjoy universal support.  Yet this version of subsidi...

Maria Miller has written a letter to the Guardian making her case for reform of the Equality and Human Rights Commission following critical reports by Hugh Muir in the wake of some of the existing Commissioners being rejected for re-appointment.    She begins 'Strange goings on would indeed suggest something needs explaining - so perhaps you will let me as secretary of state responsible for women and equalities, explain?' 

But she fails to explain, because if she had she would have corrected...

In 2006, the UK Parliament willed into existence a statutory equality and human rights body to encourage and support the development of a society in which there is respect for the protection and promotion of each individual’s human rights, for the dignity and worth of each individual, in which people can achieve their potential unhindered by discrimination and enjoy equality of opportunity and in which there is mutual respect between groups.

The ‘general duty’ of the Equality and Human...

"We will create a new presumption - backed up by new rights for public service users and a new system of independent ajudication - that public services should be open to a range of providers competing to offer better services"