Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2006

My Lords, I am most grateful for noble Lords’ contributions and will do my level best to answer all their specific questions. I do not intend to speak for long, but I wish to put on record the detailed answers to those questions. So much of what has been said outside this House about the regulations is inaccurate. Some things have been said in ignorance of what has actually happened regarding these regulations. It is important to get it right. I wish to start with some procedural points. This is not the Government riding roughshod over Northern Ireland. It is a negative resolution for one reason only: direct rule. If this resolution were being taken in the Northern Ireland Assembly, it would be a draft affirmative resolution. Under the rules of direct rule, primary legislation ends up as an Order in Council—unsatisfactory, but that is the rule—and an affirmative resolution ends up as a negative resolution. It will be put slightly differently in the other place for GB legislation—as it is not direct rule, the procedure is slightly different. We are following the rules set out for direct rule. We wish there was not direct rule, but that is in the hands of Northern Ireland politicians not the Government. Only the noble Lord, Lord Lester, referred to the fact that these regulations—which are what we are debating tonight, not an idea or resolution—were debated for a half day in the transitional Assembly in Northern Ireland on 11 December, less than a month ago. There is a full Hansard record of that debate. The motion was similar to what it is tonight—that is, to withdraw the regulations and leave the issue to be determined by the Assembly. It was effectively a motion to nullify. Out of 108 Members, the vote was 39 to 39. As such it was a dead heat and therefore was not carried; there was no majority. As the noble Lord, Lord Lester, said, the mix of parties in favour of the regulations included the mainly nationalist parties. It also included the late David Ervine. There was a mix of party-political views in favour of these regulations by the elected politicians, the very people that we keep saying ought to make the decisions in Northern Ireland and get back and do the full job they are paid for. That happened and nobody referred to it in this debate. Indeed, one or two noble Lords said it was a tragedy and that the elected politicians of Northern Ireland had not had an opportunity to debate this. It is there on the record. I have to make that absolutely clear. One of the points made related to procedure. There are some misnomers as, since I left the other place, procedures have changed and I do not always keep up with them. The Great Britain regulations—they will cover England, Scotland and Wales—will be brought forward in due course. The plan was to do both together. The sequence of timing last summer was such that they would be published together and go through the Houses together. As I will explain in a moment, the level of response for Great Britain was far greater than in Northern Ireland. In Northern Ireland—I am not devaluing anyone’s contribution—the 400 consultation responses were all basically on one very narrow issue, so it was much easier. Because of the agreement the Government have with the CBI and business to bring in secondary legislation and regulations on two specific dates in the year, if we miss the slot for October-November we are then on the next slot, which is around April. That was done for all regulations at the request of business, so that we were not bringing different statutory instruments out every week of the year impinging on the business community. It was part of a deregulatory business, so that is the reason for that consequence of dates. I thank everyone who has spoken today. I just want to put on record—