The Crusade against Discrimination in Britain Part 6

There wasn’t meant to be a part 6 but the editorial gremlins have been at it again…

Continued from Part 5:

The potential cost

One additional area which attracted some media attention but not nearly enough is the matter of the cost of implementing the Bill should it become law. The new legislation. despite being officially peddled as a mere tidying-up exercise, is likely to impose enormous costs on the public and private sectors. Even the government, in its Regulatory Impact Assessment (caution: very large pdf file) concedes that the implementation costs will be very substantial, although it attempts to wave these away by pointing to the supposed benefits. First year implementation costs might be as high as £310 million, against which potential efficiencies amounting to £125 million are able to be offset. In the best case, the government predicts a first year net cost of £145 million in the best case, and £217 million in the worst. I know which side the smart money will be betting on.

Before taking a closer look at an actual example of how the costs and benefits are arrived at, it may be worth reviewing Minette Marrin’s assessment of the practical impact that the legislation is likely to have in the real world. She writes in The Times:

…  Whatever one might think of the underlying intentions, the effect of all this was to create a bureaucrat’s paradise – a maze without any exit, winding among compulsory equality schemes, policy statements, codes of practice, statements of objectives, impact assessment, “enforcement toolkits”, confessions of failure, internal consultations, restatements, information-gathering, ethnic bean-counting (as if that were really possible), gender bean-counting, the pursuit of numerical representation, interaction with stakeholders, external consultations, new plans, revisions of plans, reassessment of plans, networking, disability monitoring, training, self-assessment, review of progress, compliance and external inspection and all the correspondence pertaining to the above, in order to “pay due regard to the need to take action on race, disability and gender equality”.

... One’s head aches at the thought of all the tedious, repetitive reading and writing and discussion involved for countless men and women, not to mention the incessant meetings. The cost is not merely astronomical – it is infinite.

With that thought in mind let’s take a little closer look at the costs and benefits as set out by the government in its Impact Assessment (IA).

The IA details estimated costs separately for start-up implementation and recurring expenses over a ten-year period. It present one-off first-year costs of around £250 million and annual recurring costs of between £22 and £63 million. The start-up cost represents the expense that organisations will incur to familiarise themselves with the new legislation and to disseminate information about the new procedures and requirements throughout the organisation.  The government expects that each of almost 1.2 million private concerns and 26,000 public authorities affected will need to devote an average of 15 man-hours to this activity, at an average hourly cost of £30 (approx). It assumes that ‘good quality’ guidance materials will be available from the EHRC to facilitate the process, obviating the need to engage expensive outside diversity consultants or £150 per hour human rights lawyers. A further assumption is that an organisation the size of, say Shell or British Aerospace will require only 23 man-hours to bring their tens of thousands of employees up to speed, compared to 11 hours for, say, a typical six-person quick-change oil bay.

On the benefits side, these are claimed to range from a minimum of £90 million annually to a high of £122 million on a recurring basis. More than half of the calculated benefit derives from a single source, what is termed ‘general benefits to the economy’. Delving a little deeper, this is defined as the ‘monetised benefit arising from a more equitable distribution of resources resulting from greater economic participation as a result of falling discrimination’. The shockingly low employment rates of females of Bangladeshi origin is cited as an example of the sort of severe employment disadvantage due to ongoing discrimination which the Bill is intended to correct. Through the magic of the concept of ‘diminishing marginal returns to income’ the government arrives at the conclusion that a 30% fall in discrimination will raise social welfare to the tune of 7.6% of the total consumption of goods and services, or £62.5 billion. Since that number is a little on the stout side even for NuLabor’s spinmeisters, they decided to divide it by 1000 and thus came up with the figure of £62.5 million as the annual economic benefit. 

I’ll refrain from further comment and leave to it to the reader to make his own assessment as to the plausibility of the government’s figures.

Current status

The Bill was introduced into Parliament in March this year, under the sponsorship of Harriet Harman, the Minister for Women and Equality. The hapless Ms Harman has been mercilessly lampooned in the press as a po-faced feminazi often under the mocking soubriquet of ‘Ms Harperson’. Her introductory speech in the Commons may give an inkling as to how she came by that reputation:

… For us, equality matters because it is right as a question of principle, and it is necessary as a matter of practice. It is essential for every individual. Everyone has the right to be treated fairly, and everyone should enjoy the opportunity to fulfil their potential. No one should suffer the indignity of discrimination—to be told, “You’re old, so you’re past it,” overlooked because of a disability or excluded because of the colour of their skin, or to face harassment because they are gay or be paid unfairly because they are a woman.

Equality is not just the birthright of every individual; it is also necessary for the economy: a competitive economy is one that draws on everyone’s talents and abilities and is not blinkered by prejudice. It is also necessary for society: a more equal society is more cohesive and at ease with itself than one marred by prejudice and discrimination. So this Labour Government are, like other Labour Governments before us, a champion of equality.

...

Some people have said, “Why do this now? We know it was in your manifesto, but we’re in the middle of a global recession. Now’s not the time.” But we do not accept that. When times are hard, it is even more important that everyone feels that they have an equal chance and that we all pull together, because we are in the same boat.

Hansard has much, much more in similar vein that is sure to appeal to connoisseurs of politically-correct doubleplusgoodspeak.

As noted earlier, the Bill has now passed through the Commons and is due to be debated in the Lords before the Christmas recess. Hopefully the Lords will place it under greater scrutiny than did the Commons, where the official opposition yet again offered only symbolic resistance on points of minor detail. As before , one or two backbench Conservatives exhibited a little more independence that their lickspittle leadership, the MP for Shipley, Philip Davies in particular providing some amusing if ultimately ineffective interventions. Davies is the parliamentary spokes for the Campaign against Political Correctness.

The Equality Bill and the BNP

Few regulars here will be need reminding about the legal proceedings that the EHRC initiated against the BNP earlier in the summer; others may click here and here for MR discussion on the topic.

It’s long been obvious that one of principal changes of a racial character in the Bill was designed to nobble the BNP by targeting its claim to exemption from the Race Relations Act. It wasn’t obvious on publication of the Bill, it should certainly have been so by 12th June last when Harriet Harman responded to a Parliamentary question as follows:

… We have all been shocked and horrified by the fact that two great regions of this country—the North West and Yorkshire and Humberside—are represented by the British National party, which has in its constitution a provision that no one who is not white can be a member. Under the Equality Bill that is passing through the House, that constitution will be made unlawful. I know that the Opposition voted against the Equality Bill, but I hope that they will now strongly support the Bill, which will prevent us from having an apartheid political party in this country.

When my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge) was being interviewed by George Alagiah on Channel 4, she said, “I was born in Egypt but I could be a member of the British National party because I am white. You were born in Britain but you would not be able to be a member of the British National party because of the colour of your skin.” All of us should agree that there is no place in this country for a political party to have an apartheid constitution, and the Equality Bill will prevent that.

What Ms Harman referred to is contained in a single line of the Bill, tucked away in an obscure schedule about 150 pages in. Here is Schedule 16 (1) in its entirety, with the appropriate text highlighted:

SCHEDULE 16 - ASSOCIATIONS: EXCEPTIONS

1.  Single characteristic associations

(1) An association does not contravene section 96(1) by restricting membership to persons who share a protected characteristic.

(2) An association that restricts membership to persons who share a protected characteristic does not breach section 96(3) by restricting the access by associates to a benefit, facility or service to such persons as share the characteristic.

(3) An association that restricts membership to persons who share a protected characteristic does not breach section 97(1) by inviting as guests, or by permitting to be invited as guests, only such persons as share the characteristic.

(4) Sub-paragraphs (1) to (3), so far as relating to race, do not apply in relation to colour.

(5) This paragraph does not apply to an association that is a registered political party.

The BNP’s claim to exemption rested upon s.26 of the RRA76, which will be repealed completely when the Equality Act comes into force. It seems beyond belief that both the EHRC and the BNP would have been unaware of that, which then begs the question as to why the EHRC initiated its action when it did and why the BNP went along with the charade.

With that, the story (so far) draws to a close and it only remains to thank anyone who has had the stamina to reach this far for their attention, comments and patience

Summary of the race Relations legislation 1965-2009

The following is a list of the key Acts of Parliament which together form the suite of race-related legislation. The heading notwithstanding, the summary will commence with the POA36 since,prior to the Race relations Act 1965, that Act was used a number of times to punish anti-Semitic words and behaviour.

The following appeared in Part 1:

• Public Order Act 1936 – Intended primarily to deal with Mosley’s Blackshirts, it also criminalised the use of ‘threatening, abusive or insulting‘ words or behaviour.

• Race Relations Act 1965 – Outlawed racial discrimination is ‘places of public resort’ and criminalised incitement to racial hatred.

• Race Relations Act 1968 – Extended to RRA to cover housing and employment, and created the Race Relations Board and its local conciliation machinery.

Part 2:

• Local Government Act 1966 - Introduced Section 11 grants for local authorities with large concentrations of coloured immigrants.

• Race Relations Act 1976 – Modified the POA36 to include incitement to racial hatred, and introduced the concepts of indirect discrimination and ‘positive action’. The need to show intent was removed from the offence of racial hatred’. The CRE was formed by amalgamating the functions of the RRB and the CRC.

Part 3:

• Public Order Act 1986 – Extended the POA86 by incorporating s.70 of the RRA76. The offence of incitement to racial hatred was expanded to cover display and broadcasting of ‚hateful‘ material. The police were given powers of instant arrest, search and seizure.

• Football (Offences) Act 1991 – Outlawed racialist chanting at professional football matches.

• Race Relations (Remedies) Act 1994 – Removed the limits on monetary awards that tribunals could make in discrimination cases.

Part 4:

• Crime and Disorder Act 1998 – introduced the new offences of racially aggravated assault, harassment and criminal damage, which carried increased penalties.

• Human Rights Act 1998 – Incorporated the European Convention on Human Rights into British law, enabling anyone in Britain to take human rights complaints to local courts.

• Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 – imposed a statutory duty to eliminate racial discrimination and promote racial equality on all public authorities, including the police and military. Empowered to CRE to monitor compliance and require equality impact assessments and ethnic monitoring.

Part 5:

• Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 – Added new ‘religiously aggravated‘ offences to Crime and Disorder Act 1998. Increased the penalty for racial hatred offences under POA86 from 2 to 7 years.

• Race Relations 1976 (Amendment) Regulations 2003 – Incorporated into British law the European Council Directive 2000/43 EC , dealing with discrimination on racial or ethnic grounds.

• Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 – Amended the POA86 to include the new offence of incitement to religious hatred.

• Equality Act 2006 – Created the EHRC to replace the CRE, EOC and DRC.

• Equalities Act 2010 – Will create a single Equality Act to replace all existing anti-discrimination legislation. Will expand the number of statutory equality ‘strands’ from three to eight.

A note on sources

The following is a list of the main published sources that were used in the preparation of this article. In addition, a wide variety of online resources were consulted, including: the online Hansard record of Parliamentary proceedings, briefing notes from the libraries of the Houses of Commons and Lords, the online Statute database, and the online records of Cabinet papers at the National Archives, (PRO CAB series).  Due to the thirty-years rule only papers through the late seventies are available to view.

Blackstone, Tessa, Bhikhu Parekh and Peter Sanders (Eds.), 1998. Race Relations in Britain - a developing agenda, London: Routledge

Bleich, Erik. 2003. Race Politics in Britain and France: Ideas and Policymaking since the 1960s, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Foot, Paul. 1965. Immigration and Race in British Politics, Harmondsworth: Penguin

Hansen, Randall. 2000.Citizenship and Immigration in Post-war Britain, Oxford: Oxford University Press

Honeyford, Ray 1998. The Commission for Racial Quality: British Bureaucracy and the Multiethnic Society, New Brunswick NJ: Transaction Publishers

Layton-Henry, Zig. 1984. The politics of Race in Britain, London: George Allen & Unwin

Lester, Anthony. 2006.Thirty Years On, London: The Commission for Racial Equality

Lester, Anthony and Bindman, Geoffrey. 1972. Race and law, Harmondsworth: Penguin

Patterson, Sheila. 1969. Immigration and Race Relations in Britain 1960-1967, London: Oxford University Press for the Institute of Race Relations

Rose, E.J.B. 1969. Colour and Citizenship, London: Oxford University Press for the Institute of Race Relations

Posted by Dan Dare on Thursday, December 3, 2009 at 01:58 AM in Crusade against Discrimination in Britain
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