Equality Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 169:"Page 25, line 22, after ““or”” insert ““similar””" The noble Baroness said: I note that both the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Lester, found it difficult to   disagree with the noble Baroness, Lady Turner. However, I have no doubt at all that the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Lester, will have no difficulty in disagreeing with me. I shall speak to Amendments Nos. 169 and 211 together. They are identical and slightly modify the definition of ““belief”” where it appears in Clauses 45 and 77. As drafted, the two clauses define ““belief”” as,"““any religious or philosophical belief””." My amendment proposes to insert ““similar”” before ““philosophical””, to make it clear that the type of belief protected is a sort of religious one. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a philosophy as,"““the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality or existence””." It also defines philosophy as,"““a set of theories of a particular philosopher””." It is, therefore, clear that, while it is true that every religious belief is based on some sort of philosophy, not every philosophy is religious. Marxism is a philosophy, as was national socialism. Those two examples alone should demonstrate the need to ensure that the sort of philosophy we wish to protect is a religious one. My thesaurus provides a long list of non-religious philosophies—from stoicism to transcendentalism and dialectical materialism. I have many other examples, but I shall not bore the House with them. I have been told that there is a legal rule of interpretation called ejusdem generis, which roughly means that items in a general list should be construed as including only things of the same type. However, it is important that we should make it clear that when we speak of ““philosophies”” in the same breath as ““religion””, we mean religious philosophies, not political ones, or the theories, as my dictionary states, of a particular philosopher or, again, according to the dictionary, merely the theoretical basis of a branch of knowledge. These amendments are not aimed at diminishing the two clauses, but are to tighten them by ensuring that they are not used by a person or group of people whose beliefs this Bill is not even remotely intended to protect. I hope that the Government—although I do not have much hope after listening to the Minister—will accept these two entirely constructive amendments, entailing the addition of one short word of just seven letters. It simply makes the issue clear to all lay people who do not know the law. I beg to move.