EAT Sex Discrimination: Indirect – Discrimination by other bodies
Indirect Sex Discrimination – Employment service-providers (section 55 Equality Act 2010) – Students: admission and treatment etc (section 91 Equality Act 2010)
This case concerns the relationship between the education and employment provisions within the Equality Act 2010. Specifically as to the operation of section 56(5), which precludes training or guidance covered by section 91 of the Act from falling within the employment services protection otherwise afforded by section 55.
Held:
The Employment Tribunal correctly construed the reference to ‘power to afford access’ in section 56(5) as the ability to place students on the relevant training. To require this phrase to be construed more narrowly – as requiring that the educational body in question had the ability to act without the need to obtain the consent of another – would deprive it of any real world meaning, which could not have been Parliament’s intention.
This construction was entirely consistent with a purposive construction and was compatible with EU law. The Claimant was not thereby deprived of a protection; it simply fell within a different enforcement regime (education rather than employment) and there was no basis for concluding that it was thereby a second-class form of protection.
Although Employment Tribunals will normally be required to hear evidence before deciding preliminary points of law such as this, in the present case the Claimant did not properly identify any real dispute on the facts relevant to this issue. No error of law was disclosed.
Appeal dismissed.
Permission to Appeal:
Granted, on the basis that the appeal raised a real point of law – as to the correct construction of section 56(5) Equality Act 2010 – on which there was more than one potential view and which was of some wider importance given the absence of appellate authority on this question.
Eady QC HHJ
[2014] UKEAT 0130 – 14 – 2209
Bailii
Equality Act 2010 55 56(5) 91
England and Wales
Cited by:
Appeal from – Blackwood v Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust CA 23-Jun-2016
The Appellant claimed to have suffered indirect sex discrimination in connection with a work placement which she was offered as part of her studies to become a nurse, and she brought proceedings in the Employment Tribunal. The issue raised by this . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Employment, Discrimination
Updated: 31 October 2021; Ref: scu.538272