Equality Bill

I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Kingswood (Roger Berry), who is a sincere man who has achieved much in this area. I pay tribute to him for that. However, at one or two points in his remarks, he fell into the great paradox of this issue in that some of the most fervent advocates of equality exhibit a degree of intolerance of the views of others. He and the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Dr. Turner) both appeared to be slightly bemused that others could take a different view of this Bill. I hope to help them with my remarks. I believe passionately in equality, especially in equality of opportunity. I do not like the way in which the issue is addressed in this Bill, but I believe perhaps more in social mobility—as one of the factors that has brought me to this House—than in anything else. But I profoundly reject the Bill. My right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) spoke about the difference between now and the time when the Bill was first conceived some four years ago. She said that equality matters, whatever the economic climate, and I agree. But competitiveness also matters. This would have been a bad Bill four years ago and it is a bad Bill now, for a variety of reasons. One reason—and by no means the most important—is the cost and bureaucracy that it will pile on to businesses at a time when so many of them are unable to bear the additional cost. The hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown said that the Bill was about consolidation and asked how anybody could object to it if they agreed with its constituent parts. Well, I agree with most if not all of the constituent parts, but the hon. Gentleman also said that some philosophical changes are at stake in the Bill. Some of those are quite worrying. Some of the concerns are about bizarre definitions, and some people may not understand why they are a necessary part of the Bill—I have struggled with them. Clause 11 states that""a reference to a person who has a particular protected characteristic is a reference to a man or to a woman"." I would have thought that that was axiomatic. However, it continues:""a reference to persons who share a protected characteristic is a reference to persons of the same sex."" That is bizarre and it is difficult to follow the logic of it. The explanatory notes on clause 13 state that""it is not discrimination to treat a disabled person more favourably than a person who is not disabled"." But it then claims that""racial segregation is always discriminatory"." Earlier, the issue of a hierarchy of equalities was raised, with some types of equality seeming to rank as more important than others. That brings me to the point that I raised with the Leader of the House earlier of the example in the explanatory notes. They state:""If an employer advertising a vacancy makes it clear in the advert that Roma need not apply, this would amount to direct race discrimination against a Roma who might reasonably have considered applying"." We might all think that that makes perfect sense—except that my reading of the Bill suggests that, if the Roma were already statistically over-represented in the place of employment, it would become legal for the employer to advertise saying, "Roma need not apply," because it would establish a right for the employer to seek to give preference to another under-represented group. As I put it to the Leader of the House, is it not the case that, under these proposals, an employer could choose to employ a white woman in preference to an equally well-qualified black man? She did not directly answer the question, because the answer is yes. So we are actually setting out a hierarchy of different, competing equalities. My hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (John Bercow) was laughing earlier, when he saw me scribbling down the phrase, "Equality disappearing up its own backside." This is becoming so complicated that, in seeking to protect some groups quite properly from discrimination, there is a risk of inflicting discrimination on others.