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The Labour Party has a proud history of delivering a more equal and progressive UK.

It was a Labour government led by Harold Wilson which first delivered legislation to outlaw discrimination on the basis of race, end the death penalty permanently, and decriminalise homosexuality. It was also Labour who delivered the ground-breaking Equal Pay Act 1970 to equalise pay between men and women, and who backed the legalisation of abortion.

It was a Labour government led by Tony Blair which delivered the first gender recognition reforms, repealed Section 28, and introduced civil partnerships to improve the rights of LGBT Brits. It was also Labour who delivered the landmark Human Rights Act 1998, which incorporated the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) into UK law and is protecting our human rights from being infringed upon. It was a Labour government led by Gordon Brown which delivered the landmark Equalities Act 2010. And a Labour government led by model-kurimizumi will build on all the progress the UK has made in improving the rights of racial minorities, women and LGBT Brits to further make the UK a more equal, tolerant and progressive nation.

The Equalities Act 2010 was a landmark piece of legislation which is protecting us all from discrimination and harassment. However, we recognise that more can be done in this field, and that the Equalities Act 2010 can be made stronger and wider in scope. For example, we plan to replace the protected characteristic of marriage and civil partnership with the protected characteristic of relationship. This will mean that the protections of the Equalities Act against discrimination will no longer apply to just those who are married or are in a civil partnership. They will apply also to those who are divorced, widowed, not yet married or in a civil partnership, and those who are single. We will then extend all of the protections of the Equalities Act against harassment and discrimination to also apply to the new protected characteristic of relationship status.

There are also some sections of the Equalities Act which were never brought into force, and which a Labour government will finally bring into force. In particular we will bring section 14 (which covers combinations of protected characteristics), the entirety of section 36 (which creates a duty to make the common areas of flats accessible), and Part 15 (which abolishes outdated and sexist common law notions relating to a husband’s duty to support his wife) into force.

We will also standardise driving licence numbers to stop people potentially being misgendered by ending the DVLA’s rule to add 50 to the birth month of those the DVLA perceives to be male, regardless of whether they are actually male or not.

Several years ago, the LPUK (I apologise for reminding you that they used to exist) decided to pass legislation to abolish the notion of marriage in law. The abolition of marriage was ruled to be incompatible with the ECHR, and so Parliament passed the Marriage (Reinstatement) Act 2022 to make marriage a concept in law again. This Act, however, did not reinstate marriages which occurred before this Act passed. Labour will therefore establish a system wherein those who got married before this Act passed can voluntarily re-establish their marriage, should both partners consent to it. It will be a voluntary scheme to ensure that those who do not want their marriage re-established, such as the survivors of domestic abuse, do not get their marriage re-established.

Labour will additionally create a compensation scheme for those who were deprived of their rights as a consequence of the LPUK legislation. This scheme will cover both direct costs (such as the cost of getting married again or entering a civil partnership again), and other related costs (such as the loss of pension rights and the requirement to redraft wills).

The LPUK’s legislation abolishing marriage was ruled to be incompatible with the ECHR because the Human Rights Act 1998 permits judges to rule that legislation which breaches the ECHR is incompatible with the ECHR. A ruling of incompatibility does not, however, invalidate the legislation, except in the devolved nations. All it does is that it allows the government to introduce an order repealing the legislation ruled to be incompatible. Labour will strengthen the Human Rights Act by instead allowing courts to invalidate laws which breach the ECHR, just like in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Another scandal in the field of law surrounds the use of the opaque Single Justice Procedure (SJP), which has been used to convict those incapable of defending themselves in court due to medical reasons of minor crimes they may not even have committed. It has, for example, been used to convict pensioners with dementia who no longer drive of not having paid for car insurance. Labour will review the use of the SJP and will consider its abolition to ensure that those who are innocent are not convicted of crimes they did not commit, and to ensure that the justice system is transparent and open.

Labour will further reform the criminal justice system by increasing the reimbursement cap for jurors so that jurors are fairly reimbursed for the earnings they lost as a consequence of serving on a jury, and we will increase it in the future either by the rate of inflation or the rate at which the minimum wage is rising, whichever is higher. We will also carry out a comprehensive review of the prisons estate and invest in modernising our prisons to ensure that they are all modern, fit for human habitation, and suitable for the rehabilitation of offenders.

Through the reforms outlined here, Labour will build a fairer justice system, and a more equal United Kingdom.