Equality Act | Dual discrimination - what is it, and should employers be concerned?

With a General Election around the corner, Labour has proposed introducing protections for those who face ‘dual discrimination’, a previously unacted provision in the Equality Act 2010. But what is dual discrimination, and should employers be concerned?

Dual discrimination ‘seemingly’ expands protections to cover individuals who, in theory, would not have been found to have been discriminated against based on two individual protected characteristics, but could arguably be found to be discriminated against based on a combination of those protected characteristics, e.g. being an older woman rather than age or sex independently.

The relevant characteristics are age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.

The characteristics of pregnancy and maternity and marriage and civil partnership were excluded due to the lack of available evidence that these characteristics, when combined with others, gave rise to any problems in practice.