Equality Bill

Absolutely. When Ms Brewer made her announcements, I felt that the message was rather along the lines of, "Well we mustn't do that then. We will have to tone down the magnitude of maternity benefits." That would be entirely the wrong approach. While we are on the subject of work applications, a subject already discussed in this debate, I want to mention disability. At present, the onus is on the individual to state whether they have a disability. One hopes that it would not, but that might somehow allow the employer to reject disabled applicants at an early stage. If the employer had to state on a form what sort of disability would be a bar, it could be judged whether that was appropriate and the person concerned would be more likely to get to interview.