In the early days of the coalition government, when a quietly ambitious home secretary called Theresa May still had responsibility for equalities, one of her first decisions in post was to put a halt to the implementation of Labour’s Equality Act in its entirety.
The act had been passed in the final days of the Labour government, and while many of its duties had already been put into force by the time the Tories entered No 10, some of its more radical elements had been delayed to be implemented in the next parliament. There was some criticism (some just and some factional) that the act had been left to the very end of the New Labour government. Part of its delay was due to the extensive consultation process under taken by Harriet Harman and Vera Baird. The Equality Act set out to be one of the most ambitious and far-reaching reforms of any Labour government, and this vision could not have been realised without a national conversation with some of the country’s most marginalised groups.
One duty which May suspended was the act’s very first provision, the socioeconomic duty. The provision was drafted in recognition of the significance of class in addressing social disadvantage, and the intersection between class, poverty and the act’s other protected characteristics, such as race and sex.
The duty mandated that public bodies must take social disadvantage into consideration when making strategic decisions. This could mean that a local council responsible for running bus services would be tasked with making them more accessible to people from more deprived areas, if they find these people find it more difficult in getting to the local hospital, for example.
May inevitably described the duty as ‘ridiculous’ and ensured it was never brought into effect. Elsewhere it had been rather gleefully described on the Labour side as ‘socialism in one clause’.
But had the duty been implemented, this government would have found it much harder to enact its assault on the poor in the same way. Recognising the link between poverty and social disadvantage in law would be a fitting articulation of New Labour’s commitment to equality of opportunity and outcome so derided by the Tories; it would go a significant way to highlighting the persisting relevance of class in our society in shaping working people’s destinations in life. Not only a symbolic victory, it would have a material impact on the allocation of resources in tough times, away from the privileged to those most in need.
Class remains one of the biggest indicators of educational attainment; studies show that less academically able but better off children overtake more able but poorer children by the age of six. Class is also a better indicator of life expectancy than gender, with richer men outliving poorer women since the 1980s. It would be doubtful that this government’s elitist views on education and health would be readily enacted with a duty to consider the implications on the poorest in place. It would also empower and embolden our councils, one of the few places where Labour is still in power, to put the poorest first, when so often they have had to bear the brunt of top-down council cuts.
Harriet Harman confirmed before the 2015 election the next Labour government will bring in dual discrimination regulations, another part of the Equality Act which May dropped. It is time for Labour to return to the socioeconomic duty and enshrine its commitment to reducing poverty in any future programme. Building from the Equality Act, one of the greatest examples of what Labour is capable of achieving in government, is essential for winning again.
There could be no greater demonstration that the next Labour government will rebut claims head-on that New Labour became too complacent about the widening wealth gap, and prove that in difficult economic circumstances, Labour will address the great structural imbalances in society the Tories’ short-termist policies only further embed. The last Labour government made unprecedented strides in protecting the rights of workers, advancing the position of women and LGBT people in society, and addressing the causes of racism and ableism. Revisiting the work of Harriet Harman would be a good place for any forward-looking and progressive Labour party to start.
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Calum Sherwood is a Labour activist. He tweets at @CalumSPlath
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