UK Parliament / Open data

Equality Bill

Proceeding contribution from Vera Baird (Labour) in the House of Commons on Monday, 11 May 2009. It occurred during Debate on bills on Equality Bill.
I see the cause of the hon. Gentleman's worry, but it would not be right to say that the Bill will allow the phrase, "Romany need not apply" to be put into an advertisement, as that would discriminate against the Roma because they were Roma. If everyone applied—we would want them to do so—and there were two equally well-qualified candidates, the person from the under-represented community could be picked. That is the size of it. The Roma would probably be picked, because they would be under-represented. It is a telling, nice notion that the Roma might be over-represented, but that is not all that likely to happen right now. I hope that the hon. Gentleman understands that the provision is totally voluntary; it is up to the business to decide whether it wants to rebalance the community.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
492 c604 
Session
2008-09
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
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