These pages are intended to provide detailed information about two of these regulations to enable an informed analysis of them, in particular by members of the Church of England.
This site is no longer being updated.
Updates on these topics are now contained within my blog at
www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/ss/
Existing pages will be retained until absorbed within the blog files, or superseded.
SS/5 November 2003
More Recent events in reverse date order:
National Union of Teachers to seek judicial review of Regulation 7(3).
The Church Times carried an article about these regulations, written by me, in the issue of Friday 18 July. Here is the draft article as submitted (here is a link to archive of paper for version as published).
The House of Commons approved these regulations on 23/25 June. Record of the voting is here.
The House of Lords approved these regulations on Tuesday 17 June. The debate is reported verbatim, starting here, and running for nine web pages, or about 2 hours of real time.
The House of Commons Fourth Standing Committee on Delegated Legislation considered them the same day. The debate is reported verbatim, starting here and running for about 12 pages. Get a cup of coffee before you start :-). The committee eventually agreed that it had considered the regulations.
On Friday 14 June 2003 the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, which scrutinises such documents on behalf of both houses of the UK Parliament reported on these regulations. They made specific criticisms of the Sexual Orientation regulations. They had no comment to make on the Religion and Belief regulations. They also published various additional documents here and here. A final version of the evidence taken on 3 June can be found here.
Why does this site exist?
Well, read this Guardian
news story and this Independent
news story, and this extract
from the Church Times of 9 May and I hope it's
clear
that
these
regulations
are
likely
to
provoke considerable controversy, particularly among church people. None of
these news reports gives full detail about the subject, but I hope to provide
enough information here to enable informed discussion.
The Church of England issued the following press release on 12 May.
Additional story from the Church Times of 16 May.
Further story from The Independent on 25 May.
Story from the Independent on 31 May concerning the origins of the EU Directive wording about religion.
The Times story on 1 June.
2 June Press Notice from Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments
Uncorrected transcript of the evidence taken on 3 June.
And on 3 June more from the Independent and the Guardian and the BBC.
Trade Union comments: NUT, UNISON, Amicus.
Press comments 14 June: Guardian, Independent.
The European Union passed COUNCIL DIRECTIVE 2000/78/EC, obtainable here as a web page or here in pdf format, in December 2000. The purpose of this Directive is to lay down a general framework for combating discrimination on the grounds of religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation as regards employment and occupation, with a view to putting into effect in the Member States the principle of equal treatment.
Other directives cover discrimination on grounds of sex and race.
The UK government has therefore drafted a number of statutory instruments, including the ones discussed here, which are intended to come into force on 1 December 2003. The timescale for regulations relating to age is longer: December 2006.
These regulations do not apply to Northern Ireland, which will be dealt with separately.
The key passages from the Employment Directive are reproduced here as a web page.
These are listed in detail here.
Further discussion continues:
on the Religion and Belief regulations here
on the Sexual Orientation regulations here
Footnote: The Archbishops' Council - who are they?
Here is a list of the members (there is no list on the official CofE website).
Simon Sarmiento last modified these pages on 21 August 2003.