Earlier today I was on the BBC's Daily Politics discussing employment and equality legislation with the current head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Trevor Phillips. You can watch the piece on iPlayer for the next seven days. Following the Red-tape Challenge's focus on equality legislation the Government is making important changes to remove unnecessary and unduly burdesome regulations in this area, namely: • Repealing Third Party Harassment laws so businesses are no longer liable for the actions of those outside of their control • Repealing Employment Tribunals wider recommendations powers which will remove the power of tribunals to recommend changes that affect all staff, not just the employee who brought the case • Scrapping bureaucratic information gathering procedures that were supposed to lead to more settlements but have instead led to more bureaucracy. • Reviewing the public sector equality duties to ensure that they are delivering on their aims. • Repealing the Socio-economic duty, a legal obligation on public bodies to consider the impact of their decisions on people from different social classes • Tackling Gold plating and over compliance by working with the British Chambers of Commerce to help SMEs understand what they do and don’t need to do to comply with the Equality Act.