According to the Equality Trust, despite its democratic governance and vast wealth by global standards, and 50 years of anti-discrimination legislation, the UK is one of the most economically and socially unequal countries in the developed world. Socio-economic disadvantage impacts all aspects of life, including health, life expectancy and educational attainment. These impacts have been brought into sharp relief by the pandemic and its all too apparent disproportionate effects upon socio-economically disadvantaged communities.
So, what hope does UK anti-discrimination law offer, and does the pandemic provide real potential to take stock and effect real change?
With regard to the public sector, s 1 of the Equality Act 2010 provides (ex-statutory immigration control) for a socio-economic duty (SED): ‘An authority to which this section applies must, when making decisions of a strategic nature about how to exercise its functions, have due regard to the desirability of exercising them in a way that is designed to reduce the
