The New Equality Act

A new law called the Equality Act, designed to ensure all people, including disabled people, receive fair treatment has been passed by Parliament last month. The Equality Act was one of a number of bills made law before Parliament was dissolved ahead of the general election. From October the Act will replace existing equality laws, including the DDA (Disability Discrimination Act).

The new Act puts all equality rights in one place, including those affecting gay, lesbian and bisexual people, people of different races, older people and disabled people. The Act is intended to make it easier for employers to know their responsibilities, and for everyone to understand the law.

The Act largely maintains the rights set out in the DDA, but makes some changes and improvements designed to enhance people's rights and make the law more straightforward. It also includes some new provisions such as restrictions on the questions employers can ask about disability when recruiting staff.

A summary of what the Act has been published by the Government Equalities Office and can be found here. It explains what the bill does and what it means for disabled people.

Working with other disability charities, Leonard Cheshire Disability was involved in shaping the Act. Guy Parckar, Policy and Campaigns Manager said: "We were able to make a number of good, important changes to the new Act to make sure that disabled people's rights were maintained or improved. The next stage will be to make sure that people are aware of their rights, and that the new Act is implemented effectively so that people are able to use it. We've published a new report called ‘Rights and reality' to set out what we think needs to be done."

Follow this link for the ‘Rights and Reality' report.

We will be adapting our campaigning resources from now until October when the Disability Discrimination Act will be taken over by the Equality Act.

For further information on the Act follow this link to the Equality and Humans Rights website.