Higher Education and Research Bill, House of Lords, Report Stage

This briefing supports Amendments to Clause 10 and Clause 32 of the Higher Education and Research Bill.

The Equality Act 2010 prohibits discrimination linked to nine “protected characteristics”, such as race, sex, disability, age and sexual orientation. In the Commission’s view, requirements placed on higher education institutions (HEIs) to publish equality data (the transparency duty) for certain protected characteristics, but not others, are inappropriately narrow, by focusing only on gender, ethnicity, and socio-economic background.

In our view, the Government cannot improve access to higher education for all of the groups for which this is necessary if a number of protected characteristics, including disability, are excluded from the transparency duty.

Download the full briefing for the Higher Education and Research Bill, House of Lords, Report Stage (Word)