House of Lords retains socio-economic duty

Submitted by Bill Kerry on 4 March 2010

We are delighted that the public sector socio-economic duty in the Equality Bill has been retained by the House of Lords. The Equality Trust, along with others, has campaigned hard to keep it in and provided briefings to all the Lords earlier in the legislative process which, we believe, had some influence.

Whilst not perfect the duty does have symbolic importance and, hopefully, will have some practical impact as well. In the words of Baroness Royall of Blaisdon, who spoke in the debate against the amendment:

"There was much debate in Committee about whether the Government should be tackling the outcomes or causes of socio-economic disadvantage. To be clear, we are trying to break the cycle of deprivation, where the effects-the outcomes of past disadvantage such as childhood poverty, poor educational achievement, poor housing and health et cetera-become the causes of future disadvantage and inequality. This duty will help us to break that cycle. We have made clear in the wording of the duty that we want to see real change with tangible, measurable outcomes."