Britain’s equality laws have created a system of ‘justified discrimination’ that rewards some groups while disadvantaging others, according to a major new report calling for the repeal of the Equality Act 2010.
The study argues that a law originally presented as a simple update of anti-discrimination legislation has instead transformed hiring practices, public administration, workplace culture, and even the way courts interpret fairness and equal treatment.
Published by the Prosperity Institute, the report contends that the Equality Act shifted Britain away from the principle of equality before the law and towards a system centred on protected identities and group-based outcomes.
Its authors, educator Alka Sehgal Cuthbert and employment barrister Anna Loutfi, argue that the legislation has become one of the principal drivers of diversity policies, positive action programmes, and equality compliance requirements across modern Britain.
The report, Some More Equal Than Others: The Case Against the Equality Act, challenges the widely accepted view that the Equality Act merely consolidated a patchwork of existing anti-discrimination laws. Instead, the authors argue that the legislation represented a fundamental change in legal philosophy, replacing the prohibition of specific discriminatory acts with a broader duty to actively pursue equality outcomes.
According to the report, the Act was heavily influenced by a network of equality lawyers, activists, and international organisations, particularly the Equal Rights Trust and its 2008 Declaration of Principles on Equality. The authors argue that this introduced a more interventionist approach to law that departed from Britain’s traditional common-law emphasis on individual rights and freedoms.
At the centre of the report’s criticism is the system of protected characteristics, which covers categories such as race, sex, disability, religion, and sexual orientation. While intended to prevent discrimination, the authors argue that the framework encourages employers, courts, and public authorities to focus on group identity rather than individual merit.
The report claims this has contributed to diversity-based recruitment policies, equality audits, mandatory training programmes, and a growing compliance industry that now extends throughout both the public and private sectors. It also argues that employers increasingly make decisions based on legal risk rather than performance, fearing discrimination claims under the Act.
Particular criticism is directed at the Public Sector Equality Duty, which requires public authorities to consider equality objectives when making decisions. The authors argue that the duty has encouraged bureaucratic expansion and allowed activist groups and consultants to exert greater influence over public institutions.
To support its case, the report examines several court cases, including equal-pay litigation against retailer Next and an NHS employment dispute involving ethnic minority recruitment policies. The authors argue that these cases demonstrate how the Act has expanded judicial involvement in areas that were previously matters for employers and institutions themselves.
The report proposes three possible routes forward: complete repeal of the Equality Act, replacement with a narrower anti-discrimination framework, or partial repeal targeting provisions such as positive action measures, indirect discrimination rules, gender reassignment protections, and the Public Sector Equality Duty.
