The Government has no plans to commence Section 1 of the Equality Act 2010 in England. We have made clear on numerous occasions that this duty would be ineffectual. As merely a \u201cdue regard\u201d duty, it requires no specific action from the public body concerned, and risks becoming a tick-box exercise, complied with to minimise the risk of litigation rather than to promote real change in society. The duty is also wrongly focussed on equalising socio-economic outcomes rather than opportunities.<\/p>
The Government\u2019s preferred approach is to progress specific policies and practical actions that will deliver real change. Our agenda set out in the White Paper \u2018Levelling Up the United Kingdom\u2019 is key to this and we are promoting social mobility and tackling inequality through a range of initiatives \u2013 for example in education, through reforms to the welfare system, by giving greater developmental devolution in England and rebalancing the economy through schemes such as the Towns Fund.<\/p>"} , "answeringMember" : {"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/members/4597", "label" : {"_value" : "Biography information for Kemi Badenoch"} } , "answeringMemberConstituency" : {"_value" : "Saffron Walden"} , "answeringMemberPrinted" : {"_value" : "Kemi Badenoch"} , "dateOfAnswer" : {"_value" : "2022-06-27", "_datatype" : "dateTime"} , "groupedQuestionUIN" : {"_value" : "23400"} , "isMinisterialCorrection" : {"_value" : "false", "_datatype" : "boolean"} , "questionFirstAnswered" : [{"_value" : "2022-06-27T16:07:33.697Z", "_datatype" : "dateTime"} ]} , "answeringDeptId" : {"_value" : "31"} , "answeringDeptShortName" : {"_value" : "Women and Equalities"} , "answeringDeptSortName" : {"_value" : "Women and Equalities"} , "date" : {"_value" : "2022-06-22", "_datatype" : "dateTime"} , "hansardHeading" : {"_value" : "Equality: Public Sector"} , "houseId" : {"_value" : "1"} , "legislature" : [{"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/terms/25259", "prefLabel" : {"_value" : "House of Commons"} } ], "questionText" : "To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, whether she plans to make a commencement order under s 1 of the Equality Act 2010 on the public sector duty on socio-economic inequalities.", "registeredInterest" : {"_value" : "false", "_datatype" : "boolean"} , "tablingMember" : {"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/members/4671", "label" : {"_value" : "Biography information for Afzal Khan"} } , "tablingMemberConstituency" : {"_value" : "Manchester, Gorton"} , "tablingMemberPrinted" : [{"_value" : "Afzal Khan"} ], "uin" : "23399"} ], "itemsPerPage" : 10, "page" : 0, "startIndex" : 1, "totalResults" : 1, "type" : ["http://purl.org/linked-data/api/vocab#ListEndpoint", "http://purl.org/linked-data/api/vocab#Page"]} }