It’s not Somebody Else’s Problem, it’s yours

Written by Chloe Tilford, Head of Training & Consultancy at Housing Diversity Network



“Something’s on your mind, isn’t it?” said Arthur.

“I think,” said Ford in a tone of voice which Arthur by now recognized as one which presaged something utterly unintelligible, “that there’s an SEP over there.”

He pointed. Curiously enough, the direction he pointed in was not the one in which he was looking. Arthur looked in the one direction, which was towards the sight-screens, and in the other which was at the field of play. He nodded, he shrugged. He shrugged again.

“A what?” he said.

“An SEP.”

“An S …?”

”… EP.”

“And what’s that?”

“Somebody Else’s Problem.”[1]

In the middle volume of Douglas Adams’ five-part-trilogy The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (stay with me) the Somebody Else’s Problem field is a device that makes objects invisible by exploiting a quirk of human psychology: people’s brains will simply refuse to perceive anything they have unconsciously decided is not their concern.

Arthur experienced that dull throbbing sensation just behind the temples which was a hallmark of so many of his conversations with Ford. His brain lurked like a frightened puppy in its kennel. Ford took him by the arm.

“An SEP,” he said, “is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a blind spot. If you look at it directly you won’t see it unless you know precisely what it is. Your only hope is to catch it by surprise out of the corner of your eye.”1

In the book, a Somebody Else’s Problem field is used to disguise Slartibartfast’s spaceship on the field at Lord’s Cricket Ground during an Ashes match, but it’s hard to think of a better description of the way most people tend to relate to the Equality Act 2010.

When newly appointed member of Nigel Farage’s fictional ‘shadow cabinet’, Suella Braverman, stood at a Reform UK press conference last month and proudly pledged to repeal the legislation on day one of a Reform government, the immediate response from many people was a kind of mental slide. “That’s a fight for someone else. That’s about those people’s rights.” The Somebody Else’s Problem field, doing exactly what it was designed to do.

The problem is, that’s not the case, and the stakes are too high for us to collectively let it go unchallenged.

What does the Equality Act do?

The assumption many people hold is that the Equality Act is designed primarily for minoritised groups – that it exists to give legal recourse to those who are Black, disabled, or LGBTQ+, and that it is broadly irrelevant to people who do not belong to those groups. This assumption is understandable in some ways, because it reflects the way that equality law is often discussed in the media and in public debate, but it’s also completely wrong.

Every single person in England, Scotland and Wales is protected by the Equality Act, because every single person holds protected characteristics. You are an age. You are a sex. You have a sexual orientation. You have a race/ethnicity and nationality. You may hold a religion or belief, or none at all. You may be married or in a civil partnership. You may become pregnant, or disabled (ageing, anyone?), or experience gender reassignment at some point in your life.

The Equality Act protects all these characteristics, in all directions, for everyone[2].

This means it is the Equality Act that prevents an employer from sidelining a member of staff because they are over 50. It is the Equality Act that protects a white British worker from racially motivated poor treatment at work. It protects the man who is passed over for promotion because his manager assumes women are better suited to the role. It protects the Christian employee who is mocked for their faith, the atheist who is excluded for the lack of one, and the 65-year-old tenant who finds herself treated with less patience and dignity than her younger neighbours.

Repealing the Equality Act would not, as Reform implies, liberate some kind of silent majority from the burden of ‘woke’ equality legislation, it would strip an important legal protection from every single person in the country. The question Reform is really posing is whether identity-based discrimination should be legal. The Trades Union Congress (TUC) said exactly this in response to Braverman’s announcement: that scrapping the Act would hand bad employers a “blank cheque to mistreat their staff.”[3]

What are Reform proposing?

Reform’s stated objection centres on often-misrepresented ‘positive action’ provisions, and what the party characterises as costly EDI bureaucracy. Their financial argument was easily debunked last Summer; The Guardian generously estimated that cutting DEI roles in Reform-controlled councils would save a whopping 0.003% of their combined budgets[4].

But the Equality Act is not primarily an EDI policy document, it’s a consolidating piece of legislation that replaced a patchwork of over a hundred separate Acts, Statutory Instruments, Regulations and Orders, each with its own definitions, tests and enforcement mechanisms. Contrary to the claim that the Equality Act is a complex burden, it in fact brought all this disparate legislation together into a single, coherent legal framework with consistent definitions and clearer obligations for both individuals and organisations.

Reform’s pledge was bold, but it was also striking in how poorly thought through it was. When pressed on the detail by the excellent Disability News Service, the party initially seemed unaware that the Equality Act’s protections extend far beyond employment into housing, transport, education, healthcare and public services[5]. A vague promise of a replacement ‘Workplace Fairness Act’ was offered, followed by a second vague promise of another new Act to cover everything else. That is not policy, it’s weak improvisation from people who were caught not really knowing what they’re talking about.

Braverman described the Act’s protected characteristics as ‘pernicious’ and ‘divisive’. Most reasonable people across the political spectrum would, hopefully, agree that there is nothing pernicious about the legal right not to be sacked because you are pregnant, receive a worse level of service because of your age, or experience workplace bullying because of the colour of your skin. If anything, they are protections that should be considered basic. The framing of civil rights invocation as ‘victimhood’, reflecting some sort of weakness, does not make the rights, or the need for them, less real. Words do still mean things – and language weaponised to make legitimate legal protections sound like special pleading does not make it true.

What does this mean for social housing?

For those of us working in the sector, the implications of what Reform have proposed would be concrete and serious. The communities served by social housing providers are among the most diverse in the country – tenants include disabled people, older people, people from minoritised ethnic groups, and people experiencing multiple and intersecting disadvantages. The Equality Act underpins providers’ legal obligations to treat those tenants fairly. These obligations extend beyond employment to how homes are allocated, how repairs are responded to, how organisations communicate, and how decisions about services and policy are made.

Crucially, the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED), which requires public bodies[6] to have due regard to equality in everything they do, sits within the Equality Act. Repeal the Act, and you lose the Duty. You lose the legal requirement to consider impact assessments; to think about who might be disproportionately affected by a policy or service change; to demonstrate that decisions are made with an awareness of who residents actually are.

Losing the Equality Act would also affect every person employed in the sector. Without it, the protections that currently sit behind every employment contract, every grievance process, and every reasonable adjustment request would disappear overnight.

What do we do about it?

The next general election is most likely still three years away, and the Conservatives, not Reform, remain the official opposition. An outright Reform government is not a foregone conclusion, but political conditions in the UK are shifting quickly. Reform is currently polling ahead of both Labour and the Conservatives, and their commitment to repeal the Equality Act as an oddly high priority is now a matter of public record. Dismissing it as fringe politics would be a mistake.

What we can do, right now, is be precise and confident in how we talk about equality legislation. When colleagues or board members suggest the Equality Act is something for HR to worry about, or something that only affects certain groups, we should correct that clearly and calmly. When we hear Reform’s framing about ‘victimhood’ and ‘division’, we should name it for what it is: a mischaracterisation of legislation that protects everyone, and a distraction from their real question of whether flat-out discrimination should simply be permitted.

Housing providers should also be talking to residents about this. The Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard requires landlords to be open with tenants, treat them with fairness and respect, and enable them to influence decision-making; understanding the legal framework that underpins those rights is part of that. The communities served by social housing providers potentially have the most to lose from weakened equality law, so making sure they are well-informed is both good practice and a regulatory expectation.

The Equality Act is a legal framework that reflects the basic principle that every person deserves to be treated with dignity and fairness, regardless of who they are. It is not a favour extended to minoritised groups that’s just a niche concern for EDI or HR specialists. The Somebody Else’s Problem field only works if we let it.

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[1] Adams, D. (1982) Life, the universe and everything. London: Pan Books

[2] Some characteristics have a narrower or slightly different application depending on context. Marriage and civil partnership protection, for example, applies in employment but not to the provision of services. Age is the only characteristic where direct discrimination can be justified if it is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. Disability has unique provisions, including an explicit permission for more favourable treatment and a duty on employers and service providers to make reasonable adjustments; duties that do not apply to other characteristics. The core principle that every person holds protected characteristics and is therefore covered by the Act holds true, but the detail matters and is worth knowing, to be able to correct misinformation.

[3] “TUC accuses Reform UK of wanting to legalise discrimination”

[4] “Reform wants to cut council diversity roles. The problem is there are already barely any”

[5] “‘Appalling’ and ‘frightening’ Reform ‘ready to legalise discrimination’ by scrapping Equality Act”

[6] Registered Providers of social housing are not automatically classified as public bodies, but are subject to the PSED when exercising public functions such as the allocation and management of social housing. This was established in R (Weaver) v London & Quadrant Housing Trust [2009] EWCA Civ 587, which found that such functions have sufficient ‘public flavour’ to engage public law obligations. The designation is fact-specific and function-specific rather than a blanket classification.