Executive summary

• Author: Vickers, Lucy
• Pages: 5-9

5

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

1. Introduction

The United Kingdom (UK) comprises E ngland, Wales, Scotland and No rthern Ireland (NI),

with the term Great B ritain (GB) used to ref er to England, Wales and Scotland. The UK is

a parliamentary democracy, based around the core principle of parliamentary sovereignty.

It has neither a written constitution nor an entrenched constitutional bill of rights, but an

extensive set of constitutional conventions establish what has been described as an

unwritten constitution. The English, Welsh, Scots and Irish have historically been regarded

as the four major ethnic groups in the UK but the UK has always been a country of

migration and the increase in the size and variety of different ethnic groups since the lat e

1940s, added to the constant influx of migrant labour from EU and non-EU states, has

made the UK a multicultural state.

Certain ethnic minorities, including the native Traveller communities, continue to suffer

from high rates of unemployment, social exclusion and poverty. Gypsy, Roma and Traveller

people have the worst outcomes of any ethnic group across a range of areas, i ncluding

education, health, employment, criminal justice and hate crime. Following the Referendum

result in June 2016 in which the UK voted to leave the EU, an increase in hostility towards

EU migrants has been reported. The number of race hate crimes recorded by the police

has increased and there has also been an increase in recorded hate crimes motivated by

religion. The uneven protection afforded to race and religion and other protected

characteristics with respect to hate crime is under review by the Law Commission, the

Scottish Parliament and the Department of Justice Northern Ireland .

Some prejudice also exists against gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender people. In recent

years, however, there has been much wider social acceptance of the rights of gay men and

women to full equality. Since 2013 same-sex couples have been able to marry in Great

Britain. In 2019 the Marriage (Same-sex Couples) and Civil Partnership (Opposite-sex

Couples) (Northern Irelan d) Regulations 2019 introduced same-sex marriage in Northern

Ireland, as well as al lowing heterosexual couples to enter civil partnersh ips, with the first

marriages to take place in 2020 after the cut-off date fo r this report.

Disabled peopl e continu e to experience disadvantage, earning less per hour on average

than non-disabled people. Those disa bled people who cannot work are dependent on an

increasingly restricted welfare regime, with disabled people experiencing significant

welfare cuts. They also face poorer health and lack of access to suitable housing.

In 2018 the House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee published a report on

older people and employment, concluding that older workers experience di scrimination at

work, particularly with regard to recruitment.

In Northern Ireland the ongoing tensions between the Unionist/Protestant majority and

Nationalist/Catholic minority continue to generate sectarian divisi on, though much less so

than during the period of ‘the Troubles’. Sectarian divisions also feature in parts of

Scotland.

There are some inequalities in experience between people of different religions, for

example Muslims experience the lowest employment and poorest health outcomes of any

religious group.

Since 2000 a series of positive duties have been imposed upon public authorities to

promote equality of opportunity on all the equality grounds. Positive action strategies have

been adopted at national, regional and local level across the various equalit y grounds.