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The new equalities watchdog begins work as the government proposes to sweep away some of the most important advances in recent years.

The green paper on discrimination law would water down duties on public bodies to promote race, disability and gender equality, in spite of - or perhaps because of - the fact that they have begun to prove effective.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission also rightly worries about the green paper's failure to back a new duty covering age, religion and sexual orientation. Age discrimination has been outlawed in the workplace and extending the same principle to services would have huge implications for social care. Then the government really would have to invest in its future.