A call to make menopause a new protected characteristic in addition to those already in place under the Equality Act 2010, has been rejected by the Government.
Menopause: Call To Make A Protected Characteristic
As we highlighted in a previous article, last July the cross-party Women and Equalities Committee had called for the menopause to be added to the list of protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010 in a report entitled, 'Menopause and the Workplace'.
The Committee argued that they are “persuaded that a new protected characteristic of menopause should be created.” The Committee chair, Caroline Nokes, contended that: “The omission of menopause as a protected characteristic under the Equality Act is no longer tenable, given that 51% of the population will experience menopause. We were shocked to hear that many women have to demonstrate their menopausal symptoms amount to a disability, to get redress. Our Committee is calling on the Government to make menopause a protected characteristic in its own right.“
The Committee also found that “menopausal women [are] leaving the workplace prematurely”, with an earlier 2019 report commissioned by BUPA and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) revealing that 900,000 women had had to leave their jobs as a result of menopausal symptoms.
Government Rejects Call
Nevertheless, in its formal response to the Committee's report, the Government has rejected the call to make menopause a protected characteristic on the following grounds:-
- That it would not add in any significant way to the protections against discrimination that are already in place. In this respect, the Government pointed out that several other "key stakeholders" were in agreement on this point. For example, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) pointed out that: "We’re not convinced that further legislation would have the desired impact and there’s a risk of using regulation as a blunt tool." Moreover, Unison added: "Legislation....is [already] in place. Under the Equality Act 2010,....[it is] largely....covered under the three protected characteristics of age, sex and disability discrimination."
- That it was necessary to "avoid unintended consequences which may inadvertently create new forms of discrimination, for example, discrimination risks towards men suffering from long-term medical conditions, or eroding existing protections. The more substantial the necessary changes to the 2010 Act are, the more likely it is that they would require a full-scale review of the Act. This could only be made as part of a wider reform of the Act. This is a major undertaking which would necessarily be some years away."
Expressing disappointment with the response, the chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, Caroline Nokes MP, stated in a letter to Maria Caulfield, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Mental Health and Women's Health Strategy and the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women, that the response was a "missed opportunity to protect vast numbers of talented and experienced women from leaving the workforce, and leaves me unconvinced that menopause is a government priority."
Nokes added: "The evidence to our inquiry was crystal clear that urgent action was needed across healthcare and work settings to properly address women’s needs, yet government progress has been glacial and its response complacent. Its refusal to even consult on reforming equalities law doesn’t make sense and we urge it to look again."
Dual Discrimination Claims Also Rejected
The Government has also rejected the proposal to allow workers to bring dual discrimination claims by enacting section 14 of the Equality Act, which would enable workers to commence a claim in the employment tribunal where they allege that they have been subject to less favourable treatment due to a combination of two protected characteristics.
In rejecting this proposal, the Government stated: "This government has previously expressed concerns about the significant additional burden which commencement of Section 14 would place on employers and service providers. The government remains concerned about this particularly the potential for creating new areas of dispute over self-identity and concerns about hierarchies of rights."
