Select committee: Women and Equalities Committee
Recommendation 61
First Report - Levelling Up and equality: a new framework for change
Published 24 Sep 2021
Addressed to Government Equalities Office
Women and Equalities Committee The role of the GEO: embedding equalities across Government All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
In 2018, our predecessor Committee found that allocation of the Minister for Women and Equalities role as an additional responsibility of a Cabinet Minister was sub-optimal. The role was susceptible to Cabinet reshuffles and its allocation seemed like an afterthought. Any benefits from policy synergies with a Secretary of State’s departmental policy priorities were incidental rather than being part of any planned strategy. These problems persist, as clearly demonstrated by allocation of the role in 2019 to the then Secretary of State for International Trade (The Rt Hon Liz Truss MP, now Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs), a particularly demanding and time-consuming brief in the context of the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union, and one which lacks clear crossover with the domestic equalities agenda. We note the Government’s allocation of the Levelling Up brief to The Rt Hon Michael Gove MP, Secretary of State in the newly named Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, ahead of publication of its Levelling Up White Paper. It is not clear what place, if any, he will have in the Government’s equalities machinery. We recommend the Government create a new full-time Cabinet level role of Secretary of State for Equalities and Levelling Up, to drive implementation of the expected Levelling Up White Paper and a new cross-departmental pan-equalities strategy. These should be considered complementary, high priority agendas, which should be driven from the heart of government. Consideration should also be given to bringing the more junior 24 Levelling Up and equality: a new framework for change roles of Minister for Women, Minister for Equalities and Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work into the Cabinet Office on a full-time basis.
From: Women and Equalities Committee, First Report - Levelling Up and equality: a new framework for change (HC 702), 24 September 2021
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 2 December 2021 (deadline 24 November 2021).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The Government welcomes the report and commits to engaging fully with the Committee, but does not take forward several of its main structural recommendations, including a pan-equalities strategy, a Cabinet-level role and a Cabinet Committee.
- On the Committee's scrutiny role, the Government "wholly commits to engaging fully with the Committee" but "does not agree that changes to the standing orders are required", saying Standing Order 152 "already allows the Committee significant flexibility".
- On a cross-departmental pan-equalities strategy, the Government's response is that the Equality Hub's aims and objectives form part of the Cabinet Office's Outcome Delivery Plan, published on 15 July 2021. It will publish its response to the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities "in due course".
- The Government does not take forward a new Cabinet-level Secretary of State or a dedicated Cabinet Committee, saying the portfolios of Ministers and "remits of Cabinet Committees are the prerogative of the Prime Minister".
- On the socio-economic duty pilot, the Government does not believe a pilot "is necessary or appropriate at this time" and would first look at evaluation of how the duty is already working in devolved bodies and some English local authorities.