equality.
It was limited to direct racial discrimination
but extended coverage to employment, housing, goods and services. Enforcement was still through local conciliation committees,
and voluntary bodies in 40 industries, but if conciliation failed the Race Relations Board could itself bring proceedings in a designated
county court. Campaign groups managed
to mobilise political pressure for this new Act by commissioning two reports, one on the extent of racial discrimination (whose existence many then denied) and the other on anti-discrimination legislation in the USA and Canada. A Labour Home Secretary, Roy Jenkins, whose special adviser was Anthony Lester (later Lord Lester of Herne Hill QC, first Chair of the Equal Rights Trust), steered the measure through Parliament, but once again the quid pro quo was a restrictive Commonwealth
Immigrants Act 1968 to