Equality Bill

The hon. Gentleman needs to check his facts. We put down a reasoned amendment on Second Reading—[Interruption.] The Leader of the House is chuntering from the Treasury Bench; had she given more time to debate the Bill, she could have chuntered from the Dispatch Box as well. As I was saying to the hon. Gentleman, we put down a reasoned amendment, and I am about to identify the aspects of the Bill on which we still disagree with the Government. We support the streamlining of legislation, but we are not able to support several areas of the Bill. The socio-economic duty is indicative of the Government's failure to tackle issues of inequality and poverty as well as their causes. As we approach the end of this Parliament, it is clear that the Government have run out of ideas. I wish that passing a law to tell people that they are entitled to a better life would actually deliver that, but it will not. We want the Government to tackle the issues that cause inequality, but their failure to take the decisions necessary to improve educational outcomes, tackle worklessness and reduce family breakdown, all of which are key causes and drivers of inequality and poverty, mean that they are now resorting to this posturing with pointless targets. In Committee, we pressed the Government on a number of issues, one of which was positive action in recruitment, and some discrepancy seems to have emerged between the understanding of the Leader of the House and that of the Solicitor-General about what the Bill should do on that issue. On Second Reading, the Leader of the House said that positive action would be allowed in cases where there were "two equally qualified candidates", but the Solicitor-General confirmed in Committee that the legislation would be "far broader" than that. We have consistently supported positive action on the basis that it could be used as a tiebreaker when there are two equally qualified candidates. It is a shame that the Government appear to have gone beyond that, and we hope to return to this issue in the other place. The Solicitor-General mentioned pre-employment questionnaires. I recognise that the Government have taken the concerns about them seriously, but I still feel that they have not gone far enough. For people with disabilities or longer-term health issues, and especially those who suffer from health conditions, the issue remains of concern. The Royal College of Psychiatrists has said that people with mental health problems face serious discrimination in the employment process, particularly from the attitude of employers. We need to make sure that there is a level playing field for people with health issues, and in general we do not believe that details of an illness or disability should be required to be revealed until after a job offer has been made. As I said, I recognise that the Government have taken on board some of the concerns in this area, but we will want to return to the matter again.