The seven paragraphs immediately below are copied directly from the Red Tape Challenge website, explaining its purpose. Following that, you'll see the response by Leicester Council of Faiths to the consultation on the Equality Act 2010 as part of the Red Tape Challenge.
Good regulation is a good thing. It protects consumers, employees and the environment, it helps build a more fair society and can even save lives. But over the years, regulations – and the inspections and bureaucracy that go with them – have piled up and up. This has hurt business, doing real damage to our economy. And it’s done harm to our society too. When people are confronted by a raft of regulations whenever they try to volunteer or play a bigger part in their neighbourhood, they begin to think they shouldn’t bother.
If we want to reverse this trend and encourage greater responsibility in our society, then we have got to trust people and give them more freedom to do the right thing. So this government has set a clear aim: to leave office having reduced the overall burden of regulation. With more than 21,000 regulations active in the UK today, this won’t be an easy task – but we’re determined to cut red tape.
To do that, we need your help. You have to deal with these rules day-in, day-out. This website is for you to tell us which regulations are working and which are not; what should be scrapped, what should be saved and what should be simplified.
Every few weeks we’re publishing the regulations affecting one specific sector or industry – from retail to hospitality to construction. And throughout the process we’re publishing the general regulations that cut across all sectors – from rules on equality to those on employment. All these regulations will be open for your comments. So if you own a shop, if you’re running a small business, if you’re a volunteer who is fed up with pointless or outdated rules – get online and tell us.
Once you’ve had your say, Ministers will have three months to work out which regulations they want to keep and why. But here’s the most important bit – the default presumption will be that burdensome regulations will go. If Ministers want to keep them, they have to make a very good case for them to stay.
So get involved. If you’ve been frustrated by red tape for years, tell us about it. Together we can fight back – and free up business and society from the burden of excessive regulation.
This site is designed to promote open discussion of ways in which the aims of existing regulation can be fulfilled in the least burdensome way possible. The presence of a particular regulation or law on this website should not be read as implying any intention on the part of the Government to remove that regulation or law from the statute book. The purpose of this exercise is to open government up to the public.
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Leicester Council of Faiths supports fully the retention of the Equality Act 2010 in its entirety. We are firmly opposed to the removal or reduction of any of its provisions. Indeed, the act has already been weakened needlessly by (for example) the failure to implement the Socio-Economic Duty and the provision for Dual Discrimination.
The Equality Act 2010 updates, replaces and unifies earlier legislation, built up over the last 40 years and more. If the Act were to be scrapped, what legislation would remain to protect and safeguard the rights of some of the most vulnerable members of society?
We have a special interest in the sections of the Equality Act 2010 related to religion or belief. We re pleased that this Act rewards the considerable effort that has been expended by individuals and organisations over many year to accord religion or belief the equivalent status to the other “protected characteristics”. We also acknowledge and applaud the fact that the Act in its totality recognises, for the first time in legislation, that individuals, families and communities are, more often than not, a bundle of differing characteristics. People for whom religion or belief has a central part in their lives can also be old or young, disabled, male or female (or be involved in gender reassignment), show certain characteristics identifiable with any racial or ethnic community, be gay, lesbian or transsexual. The approach taken in the Equality Act 2010 helps show how these characteristics can be reconciled and harmonised, rather than being seen as competing in a hierarchy of equalities. This aspect of the Act directly links equality with diversity, which is a positive factor in our present and future society.
Leicester Council of Faiths does not accept the assertion that someone is automatically disadvantaged or vulnerable simply because they possess or belong to one of the “protected characteristics”. The nature of these characteristics differs widely. Some have a positive influence on people’s lives, rather than a debilitating one. For example, we would not accept that being born into a tradition characterised by religion or belief, or being a member of a community identified with a religion or belief, is necessarily something to be compensated for by legislation. We are not arguing for special privileges for any group or community determined by religion or belief or any culture or identity associated with or determined by those factors. But we do believe that in twenty-first century Britain, we should be able to build a society where all people can live free of the threat of religion (either its presence or absence) being used as an excuse to discriminate against them.
Hopefully, the placing of the Equality Act 2010 on the Red Tape Challenge website will inspire those who care about equality, diversity, fairness and justice to find their voices and speak up in its favour. Reduction in the protection this Act affords would be a backward step and reprehensible in the extreme – not only fortoday, but for future generations too. Britain
Read our response on the Red Tape Challenge website. The Council of Faiths is currently sitting at the top of a total of 302 replies on this page.
