Equality Bill

No, it is not, because protection from harassment on the grounds of sexual orientation is not available in school as it is in employment. If schools had policies sufficient to ensure that this was not a problem, as the hon. Gentleman and I agree they should, we would not be turning to the law. However, the evidence that I have just set out for him, which is well established, is that young people who are lesbian, gay or bisexual or who are perceived as such do experience harassment. It was found that 97 per cent. of pupils hear other insulting homophobic remarks such as "poof", "dyke" and so on, and less than a quarter—23 per cent.—of young gay people have been told that homophobic bullying is wrong in their school. It was the hon. Member for Forest of Dean who seemed to say that this was about faith schools. I am not making that point, because this is about all schools, as it is a current problem for all schools.