Laws that will affect people across all walks of life are about to become reality.

The Equality Act - designed to prevent discrimination in the workplace and in the provision of goods and services - finally became law this summer, but what happens now?

After an understandably protracted process of legislative scrutiny, that saw the Equality Bill considered first by Legislative Council, before the general election, and then by the House of Keys after it, the bill finally gained royal assent in July.

Due to late technical amendments that arose, in part as a result of the detailed scrutiny and alterations made as part of that process, that royal assent did not come in time for it to be promulgated on Tynwald Day.

As disappointing as that was for some, what really matters is that it is law now and that it will start taking effect in due course.

An equality champion - new MLC Jane Poole-Wilson - has been appointed to ensures Tynwald does not lose sight of its commitment to bringing the legislation into force.

The role will work on a similar basis as that of children’s champion Daphne Caine, with Mrs Poole-Wilson’s job to monitor and co-ordinate the work across departments.

The Equality Act aims to combat discrimination in the workplace and in the provision of goods and services, on various grounds including race, religion, sexual orientation, age, disability, and gender reassignment.

Late changes made by the House of Keys saw the replacement of the word transsexual with transgender, as that could otherwise have restricted provisions to people who had undergone a medical procedure.

A new provision was also made for those who were ’asexual’, recognising those who have no sexual attraction to people of either sex.

Crucially, when the bill was drafted originally, same sex marriage and opposite sex civil partnerships had not been made legal.

It has since been legalised and a number of amendments were made to incorporate that into the legislation.

With such a weighty and wide-ranging piece of legislation, implementation is not straight-forward and it is expected to be staggered over a two-year period.

An appointed day order of January 1 has already been set for some of the consequential provisions of the act, relating to employment law and not part of the act’s main provisions.

When that was laid before Tynwald, Policy and Reform Minister Chris Thomas said at the time: ’It is envisaged that a further appointed day order, which will set out implementation dates for many of the main equality provisions in the act, will be made later this year.’

A draft implementation timetable is also set to be put out for consultation in the autumn.

Mr Thomas says much care will need to be taken with the implementation of the act. It will be next year before the government is in a position to start to bring substantive provisions of the act into operation.

He told the House of Keys earlier this year: ’Some provisions will take longer.

There will be no "big bang" of everything coming into operation in the first part of next year.’

For instance, the right to equal pay for work of equal value will not come into operation for two years.

There are provisions in the act that cover the same areas as the Disability Discrimination Act and will, as a consequence, they will follow the DDA’s implementation.

That means that the provisions of the Disability Discrimination Act that are due to come into effect on January 1 will still do so, as planned.

When the final provisions of the DDA come into effect in 2020, then it will be repealed, effectively replaced by the Equality Act.

Mr Thomas said the work that had been done on the DDA would not go to waste, as the provisions would transfer.

Work has been taking place this summer to prepare the process for the implementation of the act.

Mr Thomas stated that it was planned for a ’dedicated resource’ be put in place ’on a limited-term basis of, perhaps, two years’ to support the act’s implementation.

Part of the process will see government continue to consult with different sectors and there will be a concerted effort to ensure those who will be affected - employers, service users, disability groups, the industrial relations service and many more - are completely up to speed.