There is a growing consensus around extending the Equality Act (2010) to outlaw class discrimination – as well as race, gender and other forms of discrimination already covered by the Act. But might doing so actually restrain efforts to break down class barriers?
The essential message of the recent Sewell Report on race and ethnic disparities of the U.K. was that social class, more than race, was the key driver of life outcomes in the U.K. That report, commissioned by the government, has of course been hotly debated. But few could doubt that social background sometimes remains a sticky obstacle to social and career mobility.
