Clause 82 - General duty to promote equality, I beg to move amendment No. 143, in clause 82, page 50, line 1, leave out 'and'.
Equality Bill [Lords]
10:00 am
Vera Baird (PPS (Rt Hon Charles Clarke, Secretary of State), Home Office; Redcar, Labour)
This amendment is not techie at all, really. My purpose is to probe how the new duties will help carers by proposing the addition of a duty to promote equality for unpaid carers. I am by no means attempting to add a further strand of equality at this stage of the Bill's progress; I simply wish to find out what the Government think about the position of carers.
The Equality Commission for Northern Ireland deals with caring as a separate strand; there is a positive duty on public bodies which includes promoting equality between persons with dependants and persons without dependants. In the future we may have to consider some specific provision in relation to carers. For the moment I am questioning whether the duty to promote equality for women and men will adequately ensure that the caring that they both do will be recognised by public bodies covered by the duty in the way they design their services and in their employment practices.
It will be for a public authority to ensure that it is promoting sex equality once the gender duty comes into force. Although there is no bar on any individual challenging discrimination thereafter, the point is to try to prevent that. My concerns come under two headings: parents and carers other than parents. EOC research shows that fathers increasingly want to play an active part in their children's lives, with eight out of 10 new fathers saying that they would like to stay at home to care for their new child. Other EOC research shows that fathers of under-fives are doing about a third of child care.
None the less, society still works on the assumption that mothers continue to be the main carers, and public service providers might correctly interpret the new gender duty as meaning that they have to adjust their services to reach both men and women carers. For example, GPs might be more flexible in allowing men to attend with their children; but if the health centre provides a mother and toddler group, will the primary care trust realise that it needs to include those men who look after their children?
When considering non-parent carers—those with caring responsibilities—I was surprised to discover that the gender divide is more evenly split, with 11 per cent. of men and 14 per cent. of women aged over 16 providing care. It is often unpredictable, but carers do not like to ask for time off or for flexibility—caring is less visible than parenthood, and it is not often recognised as a legitimate reason for any sort of flexibility. The Government propose extending the right to request flexible working to carers, which is welcome. However, because caring does not split along gender lines, it will be difficult to ensure that the particular needs of carers will be dealt with by the duty to promote equality.
If carers were all women or all men, one could see how proper provision could be made through the application of the gender duty, but as they are so mixed it is not at all clear that their special interests will be recognised by public authorities in a sufficiently detailed way. I would be interested to know the Government's thinking on the problem.