opportunity between people with and without protected characteristics, taking account of any particular disadvantages, needs or low participation levels, and to foster good relations between such groups. These provisions are directed at increasing equality of opportunity (see the long title to the EA 2010) and are concerned with the same sort of group disadvantage as the provisions dealing with indirect discrimination, whether referable to differences between different groups of people, or to societal attitudes or structures.
149. Thirdly, the EA 2010 also enforces the principle of equal pay for equal work, requiring employers to ensure that men and women are paid the same for doing equivalent roles or work of equal value. Section 64(1) EA 2010 provides that:
“(1) Sections 66 to 70 apply where – a person (A) is employed on work that is equal to the work that a comparator of the opposite sex (B) does; …”
150. Hypothetical comparators are not permitted in an equal pay claim; A must identify B, a person of the opposite sex, as an actual comparator.
(12) The importance of clarity and consistency both for those with legal rights and protections, and those who have duties imposed on them by the EA 2010
151. Accordingly, it is clear from the above that the EA 2010 gives important legal rights to individuals and groups who are vulnerable to unlawful discrimination because of a particular or shared protected characteristic, and both protects against unlawful discrimination and seeks to advance equal treatment. In doing so it seeks to strike a balance between the rights of one group and another, rights that can conflict with or contradict one another in some circumstances. An obvious example of such conflict emerges in employment cases concerning the protected characteristics of religion or belief on the one hand and sexual orientation on the other: see for example Islington London Borough Council v Ladele [2009] EWCA Civ 1357; [2010] 1 WLR 955 which concerned disciplinary proceedings taken against a designated civil partnership registrar who refused to conduct same sex civil partnership ceremonies in accordance with the Civil Partnership Act 2004 on the ground that such unions were contrary to her orthodox Christian belief that “marriage is the union of one man and one woman for life” (para 7).
152. The EA 2010 also imposes duties on individuals and organisations not to discriminate unlawfully. It does so by regulating the practical day-to-day conduct of public and private sector employers (small, medium and large), service-providers and others in relation to employees, workers, service users and members of the public who have one or more protected characteristics. Since sex as a protected characteristic is a ground for these legal rights, it must be possible for sex to be interpreted in a way that is
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