Race Relations Board v Applin (Applin v Race Relations Board)

A person who habitually opens a private home to an unselected class may be providing facilities or services to a section of the public within section 2(1) of the Race Relations Act 1968. The domestic location does not itself exclude the Act.

Children in local authority care remained a section of the public when temporarily boarded with householders. The authorities sought accommodation on the children’s behalf. A householder who generally accepted such children could discontinue or restrict the service, but could not select between them on racial grounds. Incitement to refuse coloured children was therefore incitement to commit unlawful discrimination under section 12.

For many years Mr and Mrs Watson voluntarily received children in local authority care into their home. They ordinarily accommodated four or five children at a time for periods of about two or three weeks. The children were sent without personal selection, and approximately 60 per cent were coloured.

The appellant sought to persuade the Watsons to stop accepting coloured children. The Race Relations Board brought county court proceedings for a declaration that this was unlawful incitement under sections 12 and 2 of the Race Relations Act 1968. The county court found for the appellant, but the Court of Appeal reversed that decision and granted the declaration.

The central issue was whether a racially based refusal by the Watsons would have constituted unlawful discrimination in providing facilities or services to the public or a section of the public.

1. By a majority of four to one, the appeal was dismissed. Lord Reid, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest, Lord Simon of Glaisdale and Lord Salmon concluded that the refusal which the appellant advocated would have contravened sections 1 and 2 of the Race Relations Act 1968. It followed that the appellant had incited an unlawful act within section 12.

2. Per Lord Reid, the ordinary family and its selected guests are outside section 2 because they are not a section of the public. A home may nevertheless be expanded beyond a private household. The Watsons habitually received large numbers of children for short periods without any real personal selection. They were therefore concerned with providing goods, facilities and services to children in care, who constituted a section of the public.

3. Per Lord Morris, facilities or services do not fall outside section 2 merely because they possess personal, domestic or familial features. The Watsons had opened their home to children sent by three authorities. They were free to stop receiving children or to refuse an individual child for a non-racial reason, but they could not offer the service and then discriminate on grounds of colour, race, or ethnic or national origin.

4. Per Lord Reid, Lord Morris and Lord Salmon, the local authorities sought the facilities on behalf of the children. The children’s inability to arrange their own affairs was immaterial. Lord Simon additionally considered that both the children and the local authorities were persons seeking the facilities and that discrimination against the authorities could arise from refusing facilities for coloured children.

5. Per Lord Simon, the Act’s purpose of suppressing racial discrimination supported hesitation before implying further private-sphere exemptions. Its ordinary language also covered the proposed refusal. The children remained in local authority care, stayed only temporarily and did not become true members of the Watson family merely because they were treated as such.

6. Dissenting, Lord Wilberforce considered the relationship essentially personal, domestic and familial. In his view, section 2 addressed facilities generally and impersonally offered to the public and did not extend to volunteers providing substitute parental care in their own home. He would have allowed the appeal.

1. House of Lords: By a majority of four to one, dismissed the appellant’s appeal and left standing the Court of Appeal’s declaration that his acts were unlawful under sections 12 and 2 of the Race Relations Act 1968.

2. Court of Appeal: Reversed the county court and declared that the appellant’s acts constituted unlawful incitement. It declined to grant an injunction because there was no threat of repetition.

3. Westminster County Court: Held that the racial refusal advocated by the appellant would not have been unlawful and decided the issue in favour of the appellant and the other defendant.