Speech by Commissioner Baroness Sally Greengross at a European Year of Equal Opportunities event in London 

Thank you, Juliet. It is a pleasure to be here with you all this morning.

2007 is a pivotal year for equality. It is the EU Year of Equal Opportunities for All. It is the year of the launch of the Commission for Equality and Human Rights. It is a year which has seen the building blocks of the Single Equality Act, in the recent publication of the Discrimination Law Review Green Paper. And the Equalities Review was published this year, which was a full-scale “root and branch” investigation into Britain’s deep-rooted inequalities. This is a spectacular constellation of forces, and we must not let the opportunity slip.

A Single Equality Act will be a breakthrough for several reasons. Currently, to get a comprehensive picture of our discrimination laws you would have to consult thirty Acts, thirty-eight Statutory Instruments, eleven Codes of Practice and twelve EC Directives and Recommendations. In addition anti-discrimination legislation over the past four decades has been a series of ad hoc reforms, resulting in inconsistent provision. The Act would provide a simpler, more coherent legal framework that will help all of us in our work.

When we open our doors in October, the CEHR will claim several unique accomplishments: we will be Great Britain’s first national body tasked with promoting the values of the Human Rights Act; and we will be the first full spectrum equalities and human rights organisation of our kind and size in the world. In addition, equality on grounds of age, faith and sexual orientation will for the first time have a statutory body in Britain.

As Juliet has said, one of today’s key aims is to feed your thinking into the development of the CEHR. So please take this opportunity to discuss your experience, thrash out the key issues and make your recommendations for policy and practice development. There is an impressive range of equality professionals here, from both the public and private sector: the perfect line up for some stimulating and productive discussions.

What is the landscape for equalities that marks this pivotal year? I am sure you will bring to the table your views on this. At the CEHR, we are acutely aware that we are experiencing real and dramatic demographic and social change. These transformations move us beyond being a diverse society, to being a hyper-diverse society. The changes relate to migration and ethnicity and faith, and also to changing family structures, an ageing population, more of us defining ourselves as disabled people, and a more hospitable environment for gay and trans people.

The challenge of managing our diversity is one shared across Europe. The broader challenge we face is often the same, but our hyper-diversity plays our slightly differently in each local area. So the issues you deal with here in London will not be exactly the same as the issues in Slough, say, or Manchester. Our increasing diversity is locally specific, and increasingly needs local solutions.

We are facing a population with greater number of older people than ever before. There are 9.4m people over the age of 65 in Britain now – there will be 12.4m by 2021. Although London is on average a ‘young city’, as so many people come here from elsewhere in the country and abroad to work, it has more people aged 65 and over than anywhere in Scotland or Wales, and all but three other English regions. Pensioners in London are also amongst the poorest in the country.

Families overall are changing. There are more lone parents; 8% of British households were headed by a lone parent in 1972. In 2005 the figure had risen to 24%. There are also more stepfamilies.  With the introduction of civil partnerships for gays and lesbians, family life will continue to move beyond the traditional.  We need to find ways to help children prosper in these environments.

More of us will define ourselves as disabled over the coming years: the fastest growth in this country is among children under 16; by 2029 the numbers could rise from 700,000+ to 1.25m. Across Europe, one in six people of working age is either disabled or has a long standing health problem. A large part of the reason for this growth is the breaking down of taboos against disclosure of mental health problems, along with better diagnosis of the conditions.

Ethnic minorities are expected to grow as a proportion of the British population from 8% now to 11% by the end of the next decade. But that growth will be different to that of past decades. We will have more different kinds of people – in 1991 nine census categories seemed excessive to some; now even the 17 categories used in 2001 look pretty crude when you think that a single category covers the Leicester born sons of Somali herdsmen and Ghanaian barristers, another Polish electricians and Greek waiters.

Again, this plays out differently in each local area. Inner London has the highest ethnic minority population of anywhere in the country at 37%. It also has a far better than average record of integration. In many ways, London’s long history of dealing with diversity equips it well for the current challenges. But of course, there is still a great deal of work for us to do.

People are migrating in and out faster. 30 million people come to Britain each year and 227 million pass through our airports. In the years 2002 – 2005, immigrants added 340,000 to London’s population alone. But migrants aren’t only settling in the big cities any more; mid-size towns in middle England are by turns bemused and bewildered by the appearance of thousands of foreigners almost all of whom are working, by the way. 

This changing demographic landscape does not just provide the backdrop for inequalities, disadvantage and exclusion in society. It precipitates them. New patterns of exclusion and segregation reflect a society struggling to come to terms with its own diversity.  That is why CEHR Commissioners have expressed a vision for our society – which is a society built on fairness and respect, in which people are confident in all aspects of their diversity.  And the first condition of this confidence is equality.   

The CEHR will work to bring about effective change, using its influence and authority to ensure that equality and human rights remain at the top of agendas for government, employers and society. We will campaign for social change and justice.

We will act directly and by fostering partnerships at local, regional and national levels. We will stimulate debate on equality and human rights. We will give advice and guidance, including to businesses, the voluntary and public sectors, and also to individuals.

We will develop an evidence-based understanding of the causes and effects of inequality for people across Britain, and will be an authoritative voice for reform.

In terms of our strategic priorities, a full, long-term strategic plan will be developed once senior managers and staff are in post. But I can give you an indication of our strategic thinking for the first few months of our work:

• firstly, we are working to build a credible and independent organisation
• secondly, we need to map and target equality battlefields – the areas where most work is needed to make a difference
• thirdly, we will concentrate on improving life chances and reducing inequalities
• finally, there is our human rights mandate and the work we have to do create a positive narrative for an active human rights culture in Britain.

This is an exciting time to be working for equality and human rights, with change at the top of government, change planned to equality legislation, and a new Commission for Equality and Human Rights about to start work. And there are exciting developments afoot at the European level as well. And with that I will pass you to Brenda King, who has worked extensively in Europe.

Thank you.