Change in focus in equality policy...

The move away from London is (I presume) part of the levelling up agenda and to get away from all the lefty liberal labour luvvies ( good alliteration there ) which I think is a good thing.
Hopefully a move away from London will mean more of a focus on income/ class inequality - as previous posters have said, Labour’s old ground now abandoned.

I think yesterday’s announcement about scrapping unconscious bias training (and wider D and I training) was to pave the way for this.

They can scrap the Equality Act in January. They will love doing this.

I agree this is bad for everyone, especially disabled people, women and ethnic minorities. It’s classic Tory individualism.

Ms Truss will call time on "a small group of self-selecting activists" holding sway over the equalities debate. ...

Call time on Stonewall. PLEASE call time on Stonewall!!!

"...and now we are going to move away from identity politics"

It will centre on reforms that aim to promote equality by handing people greater agency over their lives

Uh-huh.

So no acknowledgement of structural inequality then?

I can't see how this is going to help make society fairer. Just easier for those already privileged to pretend that we live in a meritocracy.

Unintended negative consequences...

That's something of an understatement, isn't it? When was erasure of an entire sex class an unintended negative consequence?

How do statements like this work alongside the extraordinary bias shown by the Tories on the Women and Equalities Committee?

I don't claim to know enough about BLM to give a terribly well informed opinion, but if you substitute Stonewall or Mermaids into that sentence, it reads pretty well to me.

I agree. Lobby groups have had far too much of a hand in shaping policy.

She will argue that objective data should be prioritised over the subjective experiences of individuals in influencing policy.

Objective data over emotional anecdote sounds good to me.

She believes there has been an over-emphasis on campaign groups like Black Lives Matter and is concerned that the loudest groups have tended to attract the most attention, instead of evidence leading the debate, it is understood.

I don't claim to know enough about BLM to give a terribly well informed opinion, but if you substitute Stonewall or Mermaids into that sentence, it reads pretty well to me.

If they move the equalities hub to the north they might get some more straight talking. I'm not sure what an equalities hub is, mind!

It was actually launched by Theresa May. It sounded like a streamlining cost-saving exercise (and still does) to lump all equality issues under one umbrella. I'm amazed they are actually doing something with it and the relocation sounds interesting, but let's not forget that the Tories have been quite content to let the Equalities Office become the 'LGBT Office' and would probably sack the whole thing off if they could get away with it.

The speech will be live on the Centre for Policy Studies You Tube channel at 2pm.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4108642-Liz-Truss-to-overhaul-Equalities-brief

I'm not sure where issues like CEDAW would fit, and issues like medical care, maternity vaginal mesh. I'll be watching with interest.

In recent years the Tories have repeatedly promised to look after the underdogs/Northerners/ low income families etc. I may just be cynical but it has never actually happened.

We need to watch the new office like hawks and we need fit for purpose women and children’s orgs who can lobby fo get government to use their data in real-world affected ways. We can’t trust any government, left and right are both shit for women.

I’m still a labour member and I have a lot of faith in my own local government and councillors, but neighbouring Northern areas (looking at you, Liverpool and Leeds) are stacked to the rafters with Labour misogynists - just look at what happened with Liverpool Resisters, and the absolute horror of the Leeds managed prostitution zone.

Absolutely take on board that disability rights and benefits need to be defended too.

Further coverage and details in the Telegraph and Daily Mail today which Fleegle has a thread on, link here to join up the discussions www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4108642-Liz-Truss-to-overhaul-Equalities-brief?watched=1&msgid=102690402#102690402

Whilst we all wring our hands and wail. It might be worth taking a step back. Tories do an awful lot of opinion polls and focus groups. Labour should have been asking the North these questons but they haven't (or at least haven't listened). I'd be interested in just how much money is (has been) thrown at the equality agenda, and what that money has bought us.

I do think that having a re-think and trying practical, instead of meetings and quotas, solutions. I'm a lefty but have become more and more annoyed by the sloganizing of equality without it having any real practical meaning.

Lots of people have been turning away from equality issues because they feel they're just getting a constant battering of ideology which doesn't fit with their lives. It's hard for us all to understand how far the cultural divide has gone and we now need to try and bring things back to the centre and make policies work for people.

not good

Things that have worked re poverty and outcomes such as SureStart were hollowed our and closed down, disability programmes starved of cash especially the things that helped businesses to make adaptations needed for disabled employees and this done by a bunch of public school chaps in a cabinet where there are v few women and all while UC causes ever more problems.
Good data is useful and capture of debate by loudest voices is good but as others have said understanding the structural issues is also needed as well as the political will to do something about them. To find out the correlations between them you need qualitative and well as quantitive data

I think this is the extremely worrying for women, and I'm surprised that no one else does tbh! Sometimes this forum feels like it can't see women for the trans trees.

If they remove the focus on structural inequalities then they are removing that focus for WOMEN as much as anyone else. As a woman I've always come away from unconscious bias training thinking I'm bloody glad all the older men (who inevitably seem to prefer working with other men) I work with have to do it. Yes looking at poverty includes women and that's great, but if they're not looking at women as our own category I think it's a big problem.

I’d be extremely worried if any government started trying to take away the Equality Act
This is also why proper non-regulatory-captured, actual trustworthy public governance really really matters
If regulators piss about being political and disregarding the basic job they exist be doing to support the public while being paid for by taxpayers, then it’s very easy for a hostile government to come in and say the system is broken .. so let’s dismantle it completely.

It would leave ordinary people permanently totally vulnerable without an equalities Act and a government body to promote its aims. You’d hope that new management could turn things around when individual organisations have lost their way, but when the basic premise of what they are meant to be doing is really important to keep in place as a protection for the public.

Agree with everyone saying where is the Labour Party on all this and I’ve been a Labour voter my whole life.

I would be interested to see how people with disabilities are supported.

You end up with programs and policies designed to create the appearance of equal outcomes but which don't really address the causes of the disparities. Like the issues around Harvard admissions and race.

It also doesn't allow for much nuanced thinking around why groups might in all awareness make choices that result in different outcomes and see that as uniformly negative you can get into some rather paternalistic and limiting policy approaches there.

Surely there has to be something that meets in the middle.