Member

Neither the Bill nor its explanatory notes provide any further guidance on the intended meaning of “personal characteristics”. The use of the term “characteristics” means that each of the protected characteristics, as defined by the Equality Act 2010—age, disability, gender assignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation—may be caught by the provision. The Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights wrote to the Lord Chancellor on 8 April and asked the following question: