Equality Bill

That is extremely helpful. I shall now discuss amendment 33, which stands in my name. Ministers have worked extremely hard on this legislation to try to attack harassment. I welcome the part of the Bill that seeks to outlaw harassment at work and tries to place duties on employers to ensure that they deal with the matter. Under the Government's current proposals, clause 38(2) provides that an employer will be liable for harassment by a third party if the third party harasses the worker in the course of their employment—that is excellent—and the employer""failed to take such steps as would have been reasonably practicable to prevent the third party from doing so."" Again, that is superb. Then, in my view, it undermines the real protection that could be given to employees, because it says that a worker must be""harassed…on at least two other occasions"" before the employer has a duty to act. That flies in the face of the spirit of the legislation and, I believe, of what the Government originally intended. It means that an employer will be able to send someone out on more than one occasion to a vulnerable situation in which they will be harassed. It flies in the face of the original judgment, if Members can remember, in the Bernard Manning case, where black members of staff were subjected to racial abuse from that comedian when they were placed in such a vulnerable position by their employer. My amendment seeks to ensure that it does not have to take at least two other occasions before an employer's duty comes into play. The employer should have that duty on all occasions and in that way vulnerable workers will be better protected. The employer will still have a responsibility placed on them, but if they fail to take such steps as would reasonably have been practicable to prevent the third party from behaving in such a way, the legislation would cover them. They would still be protected. They would have to behave reasonably and, of course, if they could not predict that a person would be abused it is not unreasonable that they should not be covered by this clause. To send someone out on a number of occasions on which they are abused, in my view, flies in the face of what the Government originally intended in terms of the responsibilities placed on the employers. May I discuss amendment 34, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Dover, who will also go into it at some length? We have worked so hard on this together, so I want to try to get some clarity about where we are going in terms of the Government's proposals. I would welcome any interventions from Ministers to clarify the process by which they envisage that this next stage will be implemented. Let me give the background to the amendment. We have worked on this over the past decade, and some hon. Members will remember the debate that we had on the subject more recently. When the Race Relations Act 1968 was implemented 40 years ago, shipping was exempt. We were in a disgraceful position. Discrimination, although it was outlawed on land, could take place on ships. If people did not like the ethnicity of another passenger, they could legitimately refuse under those exemptions to share a cabin. Discrimination took place across the work force. In 1976, the Government tried to tackle some of those aspects of discrimination in reviewed legislation, but they still left employers' ability to discriminate against seafarers, particularly on wages. As I mentioned earlier, Filipinos are working on poverty wages because of that ability to discriminate. As a result of EU demands for compliance with EC law, the Bill seeks to outlaw all discrimination as regards seafarers and shipping. It also gives the Minister the power to designate who is included within the ambit of outlawing discrimination against seafarers. We sought to ask the Government to publish the regulations by which the Minister will determine the aspects of discrimination against seafarers that will be outlawed. I am grateful to the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Gillingham (Paul Clark), because he provided us with a letter on 30 November, which was also laid before the House via the Vote Office and the House of Commons Library and which followed up on a letter of 3 August. He enclosed a copy of the draft regulations, which set out the detail, as I understand it, of those seafarers who will be included in the ambit of the legislation. As far as I can see, it includes seafarers from the EC or the EEA—the list of countries has been circulated in earlier discussions—and ensures that there is a definition of an employment relationship with this country, so that we have some clarity and certainty for those seafarers who will be included in the legislation to outlaw discrimination. Let me place on the record what the letter says. It says that the employment provisions of the Bill would apply""to every seafarer on a UK ship with a port of choice in Great Britain, so long as the seafarer either works at least partly in Great Britain, or is a UK or other EEA national (or has corresponding EC law rights) and has an employment relationship sufficiently linked to Great Britain."—[Official Report, 30 November 2009; Vol. 501, c. 115WS.]" I would be extremely pleased if we could get some clarity about what""an employment relationship sufficiently linked to Great Britain"" is at some stage. It adds to the confusion about the ambit of the regulations. The Government have written to the various stakeholders to say that there will be a further consultation on the issue of pay, requesting evidence from industry representatives and the trade unions and evidence-based financial estimates of the likely impact of either outlawing differential pay rates altogether or continuing to allow the payment of differential rates to seafarers, but only where such differential rates would not operate to the disadvantage of nationals of EC or EEA states or to that of seafarers recruited in Great Britain. That consultation will now take place. We had a consultation, which lasted six months, in 2007. My understanding is that if the Government are convinced that there are evidence-based financial estimates that demonstrate that there should be some continuation of differential pay rates, the regulations will be subject to affirmative resolution after the Bill is enacted. That means, in fact, that if the Bill is enacted on 1 April, for example, and implemented next October, the regulations will be honed down during that period and only then will they come into force. That is almost a year in which people will be subjected to discriminatory pay rates. May I suggest to the Government that the simplest way of doing this would be for the consultation that is taking place, which Ministers have suggested will be short and sharp, to end early in the new year and for the decisions on the regulations to be made fairly swiftly? Rather than awaiting the enactment of the legislation and the publication of the amendments, the regulations could be enacted through the Bill. When the Bill gained Royal Assent on 1 April, so would the conditions and the import of the regulations. In that way, we could tackle discriminatory pay among some of the poorest workers immediately. That would send out a message about the Government's determination to seek equality in this field, where we have had such inequality for such a long time. I await the Minister's response on all this and the advice of my hon. Friend the Member for Dover about which issues he will press to a vote. This is such a fundamental issue of principle that I hope we will see some Government movement. I am sure other hon. Members will wish to see that, too. May I now discuss amendment 24, which I have tabled? It has been raised in the discussions already and is a further amendment on the subject of the minimum wage. I cannot remember on how many occasions I have tried this—it becomes like a hardy perennial. My intention is to try to remove the discrimination against young people in the minimum wage legislation. I come from a basic trade union background, and I believe that someone should be paid the rate for their job. That rate should be based on the work that they do and the value that they add to the company's work—and therefore their assistance towards its overall profit and future sustainability. A person who is making that contribution should be paid the rate for the job, no matter what age they are. This amendment would remove the ability to discriminate on the basis of age. If there are arguments to be made about the deterrent effect that such a change would have on the employment of young people, we need to see the evidence behind them because it has never been produced. We have never had any quantitative estimation of how many young people would be disbarred from employment as a result of being paid the rate for the job. The argument is the same as the one we had about the basic principle of having a minimum wage. We were told that it would cost jobs and would undermine the profitability of companies, but that has not happened. [Interruption.] I am happy to give way if the hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) wants to say something. This issue concerns basic principles of justice and equality, and I urge the Government, even at this late stage, to give some indication that, even if they cannot address it in this Bill, we will at least have a proper review about age discrimination against young people. I want to get a real debate going and get some real information about this issue, because it has not been considered satisfactorily by the Low Pay Commission and others, and it has become almost a given. I shall not press the amendment today because it looks as though we will be allowed only a few votes, given the way that time has gone on in this debate, but I say to the Government that I am not going to give up on this, and neither will other Members of the House. We will come back to it again and again until we have tackled this discrimination against young people.