§ Mr. Stephen O'BrienTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many proceedings were brought by employees under discrimination law in each year since 1997 concerning(a) sexual orientation and (b) religious belief; and what estimate she has made of the number of such proceedings in 2004 to 2006. [175149]
§ Ms HewittThe Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003 and the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003 came into force on 1 and 2 December 2003 respectively. These Regulations give all workers a right to bring Employment Tribunal proceedings about discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, or religion or belief, a right which did not in general exist before.
In the period December 2003 to April 2004 there have been 30 Employment Tribunal applications registered by the Employment Tribunals Service relating to sexual orientation and 22 applications relating to religion or belief. These figures will be included with others in the Employment Tribunals Service's Annual Report, which is due to be published and laid before the House in mid-July.
In the Regulatory Impact Assessments prepared for the above Regulations, the DTI estimated that there would be around 1,000 applications a year relating to 1563W sexual orientation and around 1,000 applications a year relating to religion or belief.