Phone call from a government minister
I had the interesting experience last week of being telephoned by a government minister to alert me to something that is to be included in forthcoming legislation.
Barbara Follett MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary in the Government Equalities Office, phoned ahead of the publication last Thursday of the statement by Harriet Harman MP, Framework for a Fairer Future - The Equality Bill, to let me know that the government intended to extend the public sector equality duty to cover religion and belief.
Equality Bill
The Equality Bill will contain a new streamlined Equality Duty to replace the race, disability and gender equality duties, which will also cover gender reassignment, age, sexual orientation and religion or belief.
What this means in practice is that the duty will require public bodies to consider how their policies, programmes and services affect different disadvantaged groups in the community. We will be discussing with relevant organisations how the new duty will work in practice, especially in relation to religion or belief.
Avoiding unforeseen consequences
So why did Barbara Follett phone me? I can think of two possible reasons. First, I represent the UK Bahá’í community on the governent’s Faith Communities Consultative Council. Secondly, I chair the Religion and Belief Consultative Group on Equality, Diversity and Human Rights. The RBCG includes representatives of the major faiths, of the British Humanist Association and the National Secular Society, and thus is a good point of contact with the relevant organizations in the religion and belief “strand”.
And why was she phoning anyone in the religion and belief field ahead of Harriet Harman’s announcement? The clue is in the last few words I’ve quoted above from the Framework for a Fairer Future document. The government is anxious, Barbara Follett said, to avoid unforeseen consequences and perverse outcomes from the extended public sector duty.
Religion in the public square
Not everyone likes the increasing prominence of religion in the public square in the UK and the proposed new measure will no doubt prompt heated debates in groups - such as the RBCG - which bring together people from both religious and non-religious belief organizations.
I can understand why the government is anxious about the impact of what their proposing on the religion and belief sector. They have previous when it comes to legislation that affects the place of religion in public life.
Legal exceptions
This certainly was the case when the 2006 Equality Act was being debated in and out of parliament before it reached the statute books.
One of the sticky areas at that time was the question of exceptions included in the draft legislation to allow religious groups to discriminate in favour of their own members in employment and the provision of goods and services when necessary to preserve the ethos of their faith.
Many of the religious bodies argued that the exceptions were necessary to allow them to continue to follow the tenets and practices of their faiths. The secularists argued that the exceptions privileged the religions - whom they see as minority interests in society - to act in unfair ways, both towards their own members and towards others.
Equality principles
From the Bahá’í perspective what Harriet Harman says in her ministerial foreword to Framework for a Fairer Future is pretty close to the mark:
Everyone has the right to be treated fairly and to have the opportunity to fulfil their potential, but equality is not just right in principle.
This Government is, and always has been, the champion of equality in public policy and in representation in our democratic institutions.
Our commitment to equality is based on the belief that equality is:
- necessary for the individual – it is a basic right to be free from prejudice and discrimination;
- necessary for society – an unequal society can’t be at ease with itself, an equal society gives greater social cohesion;…
This agenda is for everyone, because fairness is the foundation for individual rights, a society at ease with itself, and a prosperous economy.
It will be very interesting to see how the Equality Bill is shaped and re-shaped as the public and parliamentary debates continue. It’s certainly on the agenda for the next meeting of the RBCG.
Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, Barbara Follett, Harriet Harman, Equality Bill, religion and belief, legislation, equality, Government Equalities Office
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4 comments
Hmmm, I have serious reservations about this bill. Not from the ‘faith and belief’ side, but the bit that’s been grabbing all the headlines about positive discrimination.
Although I appreciate the impulse behind getting more women and more people from ethnic minorities into roles they haven’t historically filled, I think it will have a backlash. And speaking as a middle-aged white woman, I wouldn’t want to think I had been given a job because I am middle-aged and female as opposed to the best person.
Having said that, I heard a senior representative of the Met Police address a diversity conference recently and call strongly for a fixed period of positive discrimination to redress historical imbalances, then move forward. He was talking about having a police force whose ethnicity represents that of the community they are policing. And I can see his point.
Anyway, I guess this comment is off topic from the perspective of your post, but all round this is an interesting bill.
No government minister has yet called me to alert me to it though…
Tess, you’ve raised a really important point. There are considerable risks in positive discrimination. I can understand why the government would wish to redress injustice and imbalance, but I fear that positive discrimination could have unforeseen or perverse consequences.
I’ve no doubt that there will be a lot of debate and discussion in the coming months about the Equality Bill.
Interestingly, there is an example of positive discrimination (what Americans would call “affirmative action”) in the Baha’i Faith. When an election results in a tie between two persons, one of whom represents an ethnic/racial minority, the minority is automatically elected without a need for a tie-breaking vote:
“To discriminate against any race, on the ground of its being socially backward, politically immature, and numerically in a minority, is a flagrant violation of the spirit that animates the Faith of Bahá’u'lláh. The consciousness of any division or cleavage in its ranks is alien to its very purpose, principles, and ideals. Once its members have fully recognized the claim of its Author, and, by identifying themselves with its Administrative Order, accepted unreservedly the principles and laws embodied in its teachings, every differentiation of class, creed, or color must automatically be obliterated, and never be allowed, under any pretext, and however great the pressure of events or of public opinion, to reassert itself. If any discrimination is at all to be tolerated, it should be a discrimination not against, but rather in favor of the minority, be it racial or otherwise. Unlike the nations and peoples of the earth, be they of the East or of the West, democratic or authoritarian, communist or capitalist, whether belonging to the Old World or the New, who either ignore, trample upon, or extirpate, the racial, religious, or political minorities within the sphere of their jurisdiction, every organized community enlisted under the banner of Bahá’u'lláh should feel it to be its first and inescapable obligation to nurture, encourage, and safeguard every minority belonging to any faith, race, class, or nation within it. So great and vital is this principle that in such circumstances, as when an equal number of ballots have been cast in an election, or where the qualifications for any office are balanced as between the various races, faiths or nationalities within the community, priority should unhesitatingly be accorded the party representing the minority, and this for no other reason except to stimulate and encourage it, and afford it an opportunity to further the interests of the community. In the light of this principle, and bearing in mind the extreme desirability of having the minority elements participate and share responsibility in the conduct of Bahá’í activity, it should be the duty of every Bahá’í community so to arrange its affairs that in cases where individuals belonging to the divers minority elements within it are already qualified and fulfill the necessary requirements, Bahá’í representative institutions, be they Assemblies, conventions, conferences, or committees, may have represented on them as many of these divers elements, racial or otherwise, as possible. The adoption of such a course, and faithful adherence to it, would not only be a source of inspiration and encouragement to those elements that are numerically small and inadequately represented, but would demonstrate to the world at large the universality and representative character of the Faith of Bahá’u'lláh, and the freedom of His followers from the taint of those prejudices which have already wrought such havoc in the domestic affairs, as well as the foreign relationships, of the nations.”
(Shoghi Effendi, The Advent of Divine Justice, p. 35-6)
Each Baha’i national community follows guidance from the Universal House of Justice about how to define which groups fall under the definition of minority.
Bill, many thanks for sharing this quotation from Shoghi Effendi. I must say I had it in mind when I responded to Tess, but I think Shoghi Effendi’s vision is of a situation in which people are committed to dealing with and removing prejudice. When the assumption underlying human society is that all humans are part of one family, affirmative action makes sense and can be done without causing resentment - because we would long to see the world’s hitherto despised minorities attain their proper place in the world’s affairs.
As things stand in society, the prejudices are still there and legislation cannot change people’s hearts.
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