• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • About DNS
  • Subscribe to DNS
  • Advertise with DNS
  • Support DNS
  • Contact DNS

Disability News Service

the country's only news agency specialising in disability issues

  • Home
  • Independent Living
    • Arts, Culture and Sport
    • Crime
    • Education
    • Employment
    • Housing
    • Transport
  • Activism & Campaigning
  • Benefits & Poverty
  • Politics
  • Human Rights
You are here: Home / News Archive / Government promises to tackle pre-employment discrimination

Government promises to tackle pre-employment discrimination

By guest on 23rd July 2009 Category: News Archive

Listen

The government has promised to tackle the problem of employers who use questionnaires to discriminate against job applicants with hidden impairments.
Members of the committee of MPs debating the equality bill had called for an amendment to outlaw the practice of asking applicants whether they were disabled.
Several charities, including Rethink, RADAR and the Terrence Higgins Trust, have also called for action.
Mark Harper MP, the Conservative shadow disabled people’s minister, said many people with hidden impairments have had so many “knock-backs and rejections” that they withdraw their job application as soon as they realise there will be detailed questions about their health.
Caroline Gooding, representing RADAR, had told the committee at an earlier hearing that restricting the questionnaires would be “probably the single biggest difference and improvement” the bill could make to disabled people’s employment.
Labour MP David Drew introduced a clause which would only allow employers to ask for such information: to identify the need for reasonable adjustments at a job interview; to monitor disabled applicants (anonymously); to support positive action in recruitment; or to determine whether someone could perform a specific job-related function.
Vera Baird, the solicitor general, said the government could not support Drew’s clause but would introduce its own amendment at the bill’s report stage.
Baird also introduced a government clause aimed at outlawing so-called “combined discrimination”.
This would allow someone to claim they were being discriminated against because they were, for example, a black disabled person, rather than having to bring two separate claims for discrimination.
Baird said this would allow someone who had been treated less favourably because of a combination of two “protected characteristics” – such as race and disability – to secure compensation.
But she said the new provision would be limited to combinations of two, as there was not enough evidence of combined discrimination involving three or more characteristics.
She said businesses had been consulted and “recognised that there was a gap in the law”.
Opposition committee members welcomed the new clause.
Lynne Featherstone MP, for the Liberal Democrats, said it was “a great step forward”.
She said: “People suffer not necessarily because they have one protected characteristic, but because they have many.”
The equality bill has now completed its Commons committee stage. No date has yet been set for the report stage.
10 July 2009

Share this post:

Share on X (Twitter)Share on FacebookShare on WhatsAppShare on Reddit
Pygmalion at the Old Vic. Access performances. Icons for audio description, captioned, BSL and relaxed performances.

Related

‘Muddled’ blue badge reforms ‘are to blame for renewal delays’
6th February 2015
UN debate will be reminder of true inclusive education
6th February 2015
IDS breaks pledge on PIP waiting-times, as tens of thousands still queue for months
30th January 2015

Primary Sidebar

Pygmalion at the Old Vic. Access performances. Icons for audio description, captioned, BSL and relaxed performances.

Access

Latest Stories

Disabled people ‘must create a drumbeat’ to promote radical new manifesto

Anger over ‘clueless’ government’s ‘completely misguided’ awareness campaign

Disabled man in fourth week of hunger strike over ‘inhuman’ Home Office facility

DWP failed to research why benefit spending rose before announcing ‘horrendous’ cuts

Liberal Democrats edge ahead of Labour on charging, with free personal care pledge

Movement now has ‘powerful voice’ to challenge oppression, conference hears

Burnham pledges to challenge Labour leaders over broken promise on rights

Successful care charging campaign ‘led to huge change’ in co-produced policy

Network Rail admits: ‘We have no idea how many inaccessible bridges we’re building’

Anger as Labour omits ‘vital’ promise on disability rights from policy document

Advice and Information

Readspeaker

Footer

The International Standard Serial Number for Disability News Service is: ISSN 2398-8924

  • Accessibility Statement
  • Privacy Policy
  • Site map
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2023 Disability News Service

Site development by A Bright Clear Web