Equality Bill

As I have explained to the right hon. Gentleman, time is limited and other Members want to speak. If the Government really want more people to be employed, they must stop making employment more hassle and more costly. They clearly believe that if something is more expensive, less of it will happen, which is why they increase taxes on alcohol and tobacco and why they want the climate change levy. The same is true of employment; the more expensive it is, the less of it there will be. I commend an article by Minette Marrin in The Times over the weekend. She wrote:""Here we have a spectacle that is about as bad for women as it gets. Female politicians, many promoted above their ability, seek to promote another woman above her democratic entitlement and against their own principles and meanwhile legislate to promote working women over men. With supporters like Harman and her crew, we women do not need enemies."" The Government should look at the old Equal Opportunities Commission's research, which found that women had clear views on these matters. Some of the commission's findings included the following:""Measures such as positive discrimination are particularly disliked. They are seen as discriminatory, to be artificially engineering outcomes…There was little support for the idea that women, as a group, are unequal in society today…Another strong theme to emerge was that attempts to redress inequalities have become too politically incorrect."" There are many similar comments in the commission's research. Another issue is the gender pay gap. Both the BCC and the CBI oppose the concept as they believe either that it is meaningless or that it could lead to mandatory gender pay audits. The pay gap exists for a host of reasons. Sometimes, women choose to take time out of work. That is one of the reasons why there is a gender pay gap. It is possible that if we equalise everything, it will all be equalled down. In Sheffield, employees have been threatening strike action over the single-status legislation because wages have been levelled downwards. Are Labour Members saying that they will be happy for pay to go down as long as it is equal? Are they saying that does not matter because equal pay is the most important thing? Women have husbands, boyfriends and fathers, and I am not sure they would be too happy about pay being levelled down. Who will manage the process? Would you believe it, Mr. Deputy Speaker? The Equality and Human Rights Commission is to administer the process. That is the same Equality and Human Rights Commission that I discovered from a recent parliamentary answer paid men more than women, white people more than black and ethnic minority people and non-disabled people more than disabled people. We expect that commission to go round lecturing organisations about equal pay. If it was not so ridiculous, it would be quite amusing. The Bill also maintains the concept of positive discrimination for parliamentary candidates.