Race relations: Geoffrey Bindman QC reflects on 50 years of legislation
Speaking at the Conservative Party conference in October, David Cameron said he wanted to end discrimination and “finish the fight for real equality in our country to-day”. He continued: “People with white-sounding names are nearly twice as likely to get call-backs for jobs than people with ethnic sounding names.” Was he aware that discrimination against ethnic minority job applicants at similar levels was revealed in a study carried out by Political and Economic Planning as long ago as 1967? Yet since then anti-discrimination law has proliferated. Does this mean it hasn’t worked?
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the statute which originated equality legislation in Britain: the Race Relations Act 1965 (RRA 1965). It established the Race Relations Board, which I served as legal adviser for the whole of its 10-year existence.
The Equality Act 2010 (EqA 2010) consolidated laws which now extend to eight “protected characteristics”: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, race, religion or belief; sex and sexuality. Few would now question the role of the
