Equality Bill

This legislation has the potential to be a landmark Bill for the Government, and I welcome it overall. As an aside, however, may I say that because we have only a little over five hours to debate all the amendments, we will not have sufficient time to address many of them? Indeed, we may deal with less than half of them. That is surprising, because tomorrow in this House there will be a debate on European affairs with no Division, and the next day the House is not even sitting. I therefore wish to put on the record my concern about the management of this business. I shall address both the amendments standing in my name and some that I support standing in the name of my colleagues. Bearing in mind my concerns about time, I shall be as brief as possible. New clause 24 would introduce statutory recognition for equality representatives. When we introduced other employment legislation—particularly on health and safety, but also on learning within the work setting—we tried to ensure that the representatives of the work force were fully engaged in the implementation of that legislation. Such legislation has been generally supported in the House. There have been debates recently about health and safety, but I think we have got beyond most disputes with regard to health and safety in the workplace. There is broad support in all parts of the House for the idea that on key issues such as health and safety and learning in employment, and also, now, equality issues, it is useful for representation from the work force to be involved in the implementation of the policy itself. In order to do that properly, we need to ensure that these representatives are effective and give them statutory recognition that enables them to have time off and the authority to meet employers to resolve matters on behalf of their work force. This amendment simply seeks to put equality reps, which already exist in many areas of the work force, on the same statutory footing as health and safety representatives. One argument in favour of this Bill that is supported on both sides of the House is that greater equality in employment matters increases the efficiency of organisations. There is the potential for the companies and agencies people work for to become more effective as a result of being more equal, and therefore more representative of the community overall. I accept that some people may say there are issues to do with the cost of allowing equality reps to have time off for training and so forth, but let me offer the example of what has happened in respect of health and safety. Where health and safety reps have been effective, they have saved the employer money and increased the efficiency of the company because it has been able to avoid litigious disputes on certain issues. That will also be true of equality reps. They will become trained in equality matters, and as a result they will be able to advise both their fellow workers and employers in the implementation of the equality legislation that we shall enact over the coming months. They will be able to assist the company to become more efficient and to avoid lengthy employment tribunals and other forms of legal action. As a result, they will avoid that cost burden in the future. This has been generally recognised, even by employers. I have seen one survey showing that 70 per cent. of the employers asked about the role of equality representation were supportive of the work that could be done, feeling that there should be at least partial, and perhaps considerable, involvement of trade union reps in the implementation of these polices, and that such involvement would be helpful to them. As I said, there has been widespread support for this approach elsewhere. In 2006 the Women and Work Commission particularly emphasised how effective equality reps could be, and the piloting work done since then as a result of the support that the Government have given through the trade union modernisation fund has demonstrated their effectiveness in practice.