Equalities commission welcomes panel report.

The Equalities and Human Rights Commission has welcomed a report by the National Equality Panel. The Commission believes that the report is the most detailed research yet completed into the complex nature of inequality and disadvantage. 

Speaking at the report's launch, Neil Kinghan, Director General of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said: 'We have known for a long time that the kind of simple formula which says you are a woman or you are from an ethnic minority: therefore you are disadvantaged is not an adequate explanation of the reality of people's lives'.

'The value of this report is how it pinpoints the combinations of circumstance that create the most acute instances of disadvantage: that as well as socio-economic class, race, gender, disability and other factors still matter very deeply.'

The Commission's own reports have shown that women and ethnic minority workers, despite improving levels of qualification, continue to receive a pay penalty and that white British boys, black Caribbean boys and gypsy and traveller families fare the worst in school. 

Mr Kingham also emphasised that 'As we move from recession to recovery, and adjust to an economy and public finances that look radically different from what we might have imagined three years ago, politicians of all stripes have the opportunity to embed the principles of equality and human rights in every facet of British life,'.