The Equality Act 2010 - changes in 2024 including Brexit-related codification
| Published date | 01 June 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/13582291241229167 |
| Author | James Hand |
| Date | 01 June 2024 |
| Subject Matter | Cases, Legislation and Policy Developments |
Cases, Legislation and Policy Development
International Journal of
Discrimination and the Law
2024, Vol. 24(1-2) 19–32
© The Author(s) 2024
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DOI: 10.1177/13582291241229167
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The Equality Act 2010 - changes
in 2024 including Brexit-related
codification
James Hand
Abstract
This legislative note considers the widespread changes to the Equality Act 2010 which
have been made or are set to be made in 2024. These are predominantly but not ex-
clusively as a result of Brexit and the effect of the Retained EU Law (Revocation and
Reform) Act 2023 and see indirect effect give way to express statutory provisions. The
breadth of the changes span: aspects of the definitions of direct discrimination, indirect
discrimination, pregnancy and maternity discrimination and the protected characteristic
of disability; the unlawful acts of discrimination (regarding discriminatory public state-
ments) and harassment (introducing positive duty on employers to prevent sexual ha-
rassment of employees); changes to the equal pay provisions.
Keywords
2024 will see an unprecedented array of changes to the Equality Act 2010, although many
will affect the wording of the Act rather than the prior underlying law. The Equality Act
2010 (Amendment) Regulations 2023
1
on its own caused numerous amendments at the
start of the year, some consequential and others substantial, including reworking defi-
nitions of direct and indirect discrimination. The Regulations were introduced so as to
ensure that the existing interpretation of the law continues after the Retained EU Law
(Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 removes the interpretive effects of retained EU law
from the UK statute book.
2
Over a dozen more provisions are tweaked by two further sets
School of Law, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK
Corresponding author:
James Hand, School of Law, University of Portsmouth, Richmond Building, Portland Street, Portsmouth PO1
3DE, UK.
Email: James.Hand@port.ac.uk
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