What to do about the Equality Act

Among people of a conservative disposition, it’s long been accepted that the Equality Act needs to be repealed. This legislation, passed in 2010 in the dying days of Gordon Brown’s premiership, was designed to embed Labour’s egalitarian ideology into the fabric of the British state, yet none of Brown’s successors have done anything about it. In July, Rishi Sunak told a group of Conservative party members at a leadership hustings in West Sussex that he would ‘review’ it if he became prime minister, but don’t expect major surgery. The most we can hope for is a bit of light cosmetic work.

One thing about the Equality Act not widely understood is that it didn’t create much in the way of new law. Rather, it grouped together several laws that were already on the statute book, such as the Equal Pay Act 1970, and put them all in a single act of parliament.