Equality Bill

I agree wholeheartedly with the hon. Lady. She makes a valuable point. I am pleased to see that discrimination in private clubs is to be made unlawful. I know that this is a minor or a side issue, but I am pleased that the Government are addressing it. I remember a teatime conversation many years ago at home with my brothers and some of their friends, who are all golf enthusiasts. They were talking about a motion that was coming before their committee from the women, asking if they could play one of the days at the weekend. My brothers were discussing what they would do about that. They were probably sorry that they asked for my opinion. I asked, "Why wouldn't women be able to play at weekends?" They said, "The issue is that women can play during the week, but men can't because they are at work." This was the early 1980s, and I gave them a mini-lecture on the percentage of women who were employed outside the home. That proportion has continued to rise since the early 1980s, so the rationale for restricting women's playing time, which was ridiculous then, is even more so now. I am pleased that, thanks to the Bill, a golf club will not be able to prohibit its female members from playing on certain days, while allowing men to play whenever they like. It might be a peripheral issue in some ways, but I am pleased that we have got there. It is about time, too. Finally, I come to the issue of the representation in this House of women and people from ethnic minority communities. Some hon. Members were saying earlier how surprised they were by the reaction of the official Opposition to the legislation, but given their record of getting women to represent the Tory party in this House we should not be so surprised. Their progress has been very slow—much slower than ours—mainly because they have not taken the difficult decisions, such as introducing all-women shortlists, to increase women's representation. We know that informal mechanisms are important and we all need to do more to encourage women, young people and those from ethnic minorities to come forward and think about entering formal politics, but without formal mechanisms progress is too slow. We know that of the 125 women MPs in Parliament, 98 are Labour—and many of them are here because of all-women shortlists. International comparisons show us that of the 17 countries with the highest percentage of women MPs, 14 have some sort of quota, so we know that concerted action is needed and that voluntarism does not work. Action is needed not only to get more women into Parliament, but to make this Chamber more representative of the society in which we live. So we also need a more ethnically diverse group of politicians. I hope that the measures in the Bill are accepted. I hope to be on the Committee and I look forward to some interesting debates. I welcome the Bill.