legislation Archives - Antony Simpson is an Author, Blogger, Nurse & Witch.

The Equality Act (2010) Explained

Wednesday 20 May 2026 / Antony Simpson / Leave a Comment

Reading Time: 2 minutes

The Equality Act (2010) is a UK law that is intended to protect people from discrimination, harassment and victimisation.

This is to ensure that everyone is treated with dignity and respect.

The Equality Act (2010) is about ensuring equality and fair treatment for all.

Before the Equality Act (2010) there were more than 100 pieces of other legislation that included details around protecting people from discrimination, harassment and victimisation.

The Equality Act (2010) starts by outlining the 9 protected characteristics:

Sex
Race
Disability
Sexual Orientation
Gender Re-Assignment
Religion or Belief
Marriage or Civil Partnership
Pregnancy and Maternity
Age

Next the act goes on to define what is prohibited, including:

Direct discrimination of anybody with a protected characteristic.
Indirect discrimination of anybody with a protected characteristic.
Harassment of anybody with a protected characteristic.
Victimisation of anybody with a protected characteristic.

Equality Act (2010) applies to all public organisations, all private organisations and all third sector organisations, making it all encompassing.

It covers accessing or buying services, buying of products, all education establishments, the NHS, Social Care (plus all other local authority services), employment (all aspects) and pensions.

It places a responsibility on all organisations to make reasonable adjustments for anybody with a protected characteristic and outlines the potential legal consequences for not adhering to this legislation.

I am choosing to write about the Equality Act (2010) now because a certain right-wing political party is planning to abolish this Act and the legal protections it provides if the party gets into power. Scarily, this political party appears to be getting increasingly popular with every day that passes. It is looking like this political party might get into power at the next general election.

So I thought I would use this platform to explain what the Act offers and hopefully help people realise why it is important for every one. Regardless of whether you have a protected characteristic or not.

If you enjoyed this blog post, you might also like my post The Human Rights Act (1998) Explained.

Write soon,

Antony

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The Data (Use and Access) Act 2025

Saturday 9 August 2025 / Antony Simpson / Leave a Comment

Reading Time: 2 minutes

The Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 is a new piece of legislation recently past through the UK parliament that I’m really concerned about.

It’s been sold to the public with the promises that it will:

Make grocery bills cheaper.
Lead to cheaper energy prices.
Reduce time spent in traffic.
Give NHS Staff more time with patients (by cutting bureaucracy).
Put £10 billion into the economy (over 10 years).
Provide every person with a digital identity (verified by your biometric data), which some have dubbed the digital ‘Brit’ ID Card.

Sounds too good to be true? You’re not alone in thinking this.

The Act is a long document and I’ve not had the time to read it all. But from what I have read, I’m concerned about:

Removal Of My Right to Withhold My Consent To Sharing Data And Provides No Facility For Opting Out (Fully Or In Part). This was a vital part of previous legislation around data.
My Privacy – This legislation allows sharing of medical records, meaning that everyone in the NHS (and potentially other public and private organisations) will be able to see everything about my past and present health. Surely I should be able to decide who can see what about me, but this new law allows complete data sharing through a process called automated decision making. In addition, it allows sharing without making the individual aware of what exactly is being shared and why. It feels like a data free for all.
How Safe & Secure My Data Will Be – More data online and more data transferred/shared increases the risk of it falling into the wrong hands. Either by accident or through a deliberate attempt to access/steal data through hackers or advanced AI. What I’ve read about this legislation does little to reassure me about the safety and security of my data.
Potential For Data To Be Misused/Abused – There is a great potential for this data to be misused/abused by those with power and unlimited access.
No Say When It Comes To Deleting Data – The legislation doesn’t seem to have a mechanism for deleting data. There may be several reasons to delete data, for example if it is out of date or inaccurate.
The Government Having More Control On What Data Can Be Accessed – The legislation lets Government and officials/organisations have more control on what data can be accessed about an individual and under what circumstances. This feels fundamentally flawed, as those in power/control of the data could again misuse/abuse the data.

Blog soon,

Antony

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Did You Know? (Part 2 – History)

Tuesday 25 July 2017 / Antony Simpson / Leave a Comment

Reading Time: 3 minutes

This is the second in a series of Did You Know? blog posts. Each blog post will give ten fascinating facts on a particular topic. In part 1 the topic was science.

Today, I give you ten facts from history:

1. It took Thomas Edison 1,000 attempts to invent the lightbulb. He was once asked about the failure of the 999 attempts. He is said to have said “I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.”

2. Between 87m-117m people are estimated to have died in World War 1 & 2. Approximately 37m people died in World War 1 and 50m-80m people in World War 2.

3. Ann Frank, her family and others lived in a Secret Annex for 2 years before being arrested by the Gestapo. Anne was sent to a concentration camp and died of typhus not long before the camp was liberated by the Allies. However Ann lives on in her diary published with the consent and permission of her father Otto Frank.

4. Queen Elizabeth I’s pinnacle of her rule was The Spanish Armada. King Philip II of Spain planned to send 130 ships to take Elizabeth I off the throne and seize England. However Elizabeth’s strategy beat The Spanish Armada. She sent Drake with a fleet of her own ships to attack Cadiz Harbour. Drake was successful destroying over 100 Spanish ships and returning with gold. Then when Philip sent the armada (or what remained of it), Elizabeth used fireships to scatter the formation of the Spanish ships. Then her ships picked off the Spanish ships one by one.

5. In each Roman Fort there were 500 men and horses. An average horse produces 23KGS of faeces and urine per day. That’s 11,500KGS of waste per day!

6. Winston Churchill is famous for being the Prime Minister during World War 2. But he was also an artist, starting his artistry in his forties. He created over 500 paintings over 48 years.

7. Between 75m-200m European people were killed by The Black Plague in the 14th century. This accounted 30%-60% of the total population in Europe. The Black Plague is thought to have been airborne and spread so quickly due to poor hygiene, poor living conditions (including disposal of human waste) and poor disposal of infected corpses.

8. The first black and white TV sold in the UK was around 1936. The first colour TV sold in the UK was around the late 1960s.

9. Britain first slaving expedition set out in 1562 by Sir John Hawkins. Slavery continued until 1807, when the UK passed legislation making slavery illegal and freeing all slaves. The slave trade was abandoned for moral reasons, rather than economic reasons, as at the time there was still a lot of money to be made in the trade of slaves.

10. The NHS and The Welfare State were both established after the second World War. The UK was recovering from an expensive war, yet still deemed healthcare, social security, free education, council housing and full employment as priorities. The NHS was established in 1948 and Social Security began 1945.

Write soon,

Antony

References
But They Did Not Give Up
History on the Net – How Many People Died in WW1?
History on the Net – How Many People Died in World War 2?
The Diary of a Young Girl: Definitive Edition
BBC Bitesize – The Spanish Armada
A Sign in a Roman Fort
The Royal Mint – 10 interesting facts about Winston Churchill
The Richest – 15 Most Important Historical Events That Changed The World Forever
The History Learning Site – The Black Death of 1348 to 1350
Science Medium Museum – The Beginning Of The End Of Black and White Television
Science Medium Museum – Colour Television in Britain
British Library – Timeline
BBC News – 10 things about British slavery
The History of the National Health Service (NHS) by Me
BBC Bitesize – History – The Welfare State

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Book Review: God Believes in Love – Straight Talk about Gay Marriage by Gene Robinson

Wednesday 2 January 2013 / Antony Simpson / 2 Comments

Reading Time: 4 minutes

There’s been a lot of talk about gay marriage recently, not just in the UK but internationally. So when God Believes in Love: Straight Talk about Gay Marriage by Gene Robinson arrived from Publishers Group UK I couldn’t wait to read it, which is what I did over the festive period.

Now before I start the review I feel compelled to say upfront that I’m pagan; but I was raised as a Catholic as so much as my brothers and I all went to Catholic Schools and we attended Church on special occasions (e.g. Christenings, Weddings, Christmas, etc.). So with my Christian childhood in mind, let me tell you about this book…

Firstly it’s presented really well – hardback with parchment-like paper and a easy to read font. On the back cover there’s a quote which instantly sparked my interest from President Barack Obama which says:

“My friend Bishop Gene Robinson has long been a voice for equality – not with anger or vitriol, but with compassion and faith. He has been guided by the simple precept that we should do unto others as we would have them do unto us.”
– President Barack Obama
(From: God Believes in Love: Straight Talk about Gay Marriage by Gene Robinson, 2012)

Gene writes in a conversational style throughout the book making it feel like you’re sat somewhere warm and cosy listening to him speak, a writing style that I found captivating. He starts with an introduction sharing his story of being in love with and marrying his best friend (a woman); having two daughters but later realising that his attraction to the same gender could not be suppressed or changed.

Gene writes that he and his wife divorced and that he later met and fell in love with Mark his husband. In this introduction he explains what marriage means to him, that he and Mark had a ‘Civil Union,’ before getting married (after it was made legal for them to do so) and the he later became IX Bishop of New Hampshire. It is a heart warming that he chose to share his life experience and I have a huge respect for him doing this as it would make most people feel exposed & vulnerable.

Gene answers ten questions commonly posed by those against gay marriage:
1. Why Gay Marriage Now?
2. Why Should You Care About Gay Marriage If You’re Straight?
3. What’s Wrong with Civil Unions?
4. Doesn’t the Bible Condemn Homosexuality?
5. What Would Jesus Do?
6. Doesn’t Gay Marriage Change the Definition of Marriage That’s Been in Place for Thousands of Years?
7. Doesn’t Gay Marriage Undermine Marriage?
8. What If My Religion Doesn’t Believe in Gay Marriage?
9. Don’t Children Need a Mother and a Father?
10. Is This About Civil Rights or Getting Approval for Questionable Behaviour?

Gene’s answers are intelligent, insightful and obviously well thought out. His knowledge of gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans history and civil rights activism was fascinating. I thought I was well educated on gay history, but he conveyed some history of which I was unaware.

Gene recognises that straight people need to advocate for gay people and encourages them throughout the book to “get to know us,” listen to gay people’s stories and believe them as their truth. He asks them to try and imagine walking in a gay persons shoes.

Gene examines the meaning and context of scriptures used to condemn homosexuality which would help any gay, lesbian, bisexual or trans Christians accept their sexuality within their faith.

Gene discusses the concept of marriage and it’s evolution over centuries; this chapter of the book was absolutely engrossing. I’ve never really looked into marriage as a concept or how it’s developed over time.

Gene shares his vision for the future; where the State recognises marriage regardless of the sexuality of the people involved legislatively (giving them the same benefits, rights and protections) and that Church’s role (regardless of religion) is to invite God to bless and be a part of the marriages. Gene states that religious institutions need to look at their own stance on homosexuality and the issue of gay marriage.

Gene concludes with a chapter on God Believes in Love stating that to selflessly love another is how God feels about us his children. He encourages all to love your neighbour as you would want to be loved.

Now you’ll notice throughout this review I’ve referred to the author by his first name, Gene. That’s because by the end of the book I feel as though I’ve made a friend; one whose educational, non-preachy and represents the best of human spirituality.

If you’re undecided about gay marriage whether you’re gay or straight or merely interested in the topic you’ll love God Believes in Love: Straight Talk about Gay Marriage by Gene Robinson which is available to buy on Amazon.

Review soon,

Antony

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