ABSTRACT
Prior to the enactment of the Equality Act 2010 (EA), British discrimination law had developed in an ad hoc fashion since the Race Relations Act 1965 first prohibited direct discrimination on racial grounds in places of public resort. 1 The Race Relations Act 1968 extended the prohibition of direct discrimination on racial grounds to employment, the provision of goods, facilities and services and the disposal of business premises and housing accommodation. 2 Between 1968 and 2007, successive pieces of legislation increased the prohibited grounds of discrimination from one (racial grounds) to six: sex (Equal Pay Act 1970 and Sex Discrimination Act 1975); disability (Disability Discrimination Act 1995); religion or belief (Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003); sexual orientation (Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003 and Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007) and age (Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2007). 3 Meanwhile, the Race Relations Act 1976 (discussed later) had replaced the 1965 and 1968 legislation. In 2010, the EA increased the prohibited grounds of discrimination (referred to in the EA as ‘protected characteristics’) from six to nine by separating out, from the existing six grounds, gender reassignment, pregnancy and maternity and marital or civil partnership status as free-standing characteristics. 4
