Equality Bill [Lords]

The hon. Gentleman is right to this extent: a person can empathise even if he or she does not have a particular disability. However, I can assure him that people who have a disability know that they have a disability. I remember that when my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington and I were trying to set up black sections in the 1980s, the then leader of the Labour party, who is now a Member of the House of Lords, asked us to define ““black.”” We replied, ““People know instinctively whether they are black—they just have to look in the mirror.””