Equality Bill

My Lords, I do not think so. There is a role for differences in society and we should not be afraid of them. I want to mention a number of areas of the Bill where we have specific concerns about the detail of what is proposed. The first is equal pay, a subject about which I feel particularly strongly, as do a number of noble Lords, particularly the noble Baronesses, Lady Gould and Lady Howe. I introduced a Private Member’s Bill on this subject earlier in the year. We applaud the measures designed to eliminate the gagging clauses that prevent staff from discussing what they earn. In today’s climate it seems that we do little else but discuss levels of remuneration. As bankers have recently discovered, greater transparency seems to focus the mind and makes it harder for employers to get away with clearly unequal levels of pay. However, as my noble friend Lady Warsi explained in her powerful opening speech, we are not convinced of the Bill’s intention regarding compulsory pay audits, which are costly and time-consuming. We would welcome the hints given on the "Today" programme and in the Times that the Government might row back on this. However, we regard equal pay as a matter of social justice and we would not wish to see the plight of women working in smaller firms ignored. We believe that the more sensible solution would be to require an audit in all companies in which an employee had brought a successful case on these grounds. That would greatly strengthen the current position by providing meaningful sanctions against unfair employers, while not burdening the majority of fair employers with a new administrative burden. We will bring forward amendments on this in Committee. My right honourable friend Theresa May said in another place: ""We have consistently supported positive action on the basis that it could be used as a tiebreaker when there are two equally qualified candidates".—[Official Report, Commons, 2/12/09; col. 1228.]" But some people are nervous about any suggestion of positive discrimination. There should be discretion for employers but we should be wary of going further down the road towards allowing the whole recruitment process to be unfairly weighted. That concern lay behind the discussion in Committee and on Report in another place about the Bill’s reference to "as qualified" versus our preference for "equally qualified". That important distinction is one to which I know we shall return; as well as being substantively important, it will provide hours of productive activity for the armchair lexicographers in your Lordships’ House. It goes without saying that we are supportive of the extension of the Sex Discrimination (Election Candidates) Act 2002. The noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, said that all parties were introducing all-women shortlists. We have not yet had all-women shortlists, although we have had a number by desire rather than design. David Cameron has said that he will use them if necessary. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, that the Sex Discrimination (Election Candidates) Act is not just about all-women shortlists; it allows political parties to use positive action in a number of ways and through that we set up our priority list. Getting the balance right on these issues is, of course, fraught with difficulty, but I return to the basic premise that it is possible and desirable to acknowledge and to celebrate differences while being utterly intolerant of practices that seek to discriminate unfairly using those criteria. If we blindly follow the principle that there should be no differentiation in what can be provided for specific audiences or in who is best to provide them, we could end up with all sorts of unintended consequences. A good example is the provision of goods and services to particular sections of the community, such as car insurance for women and holidays for older people, to which my noble friend Lord Ferrers spoke. This leads me to my final points about the potential impact of the Bill on religious organisations. We on these Benches have listened to the arguments of the Church of England, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference and others who have a real concern that the measures in the Bill will cause them difficulties. As the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester and my noble friends Lady O’Cathain and Lady Cumberlege so ably explained, it revolves around a tightening of the definition of employment for the purposes of religion, which would appear to exclude many of those who currently work in religious organisations. I am sure that we shall discuss this issue in some detail in Committee. We would do well to remember that the principle underpinning this Bill is respect for diversity. It would be wrong, and not a little odd, if in the same Bill we were to show intolerance of the deeply held views of different faiths and restrict their right to employ those who share a commitment to their way of life. It is important that we give this Bill the detailed scrutiny that it deserves. It affects the lives of everyone in this country and we must ensure that what emerges is equal to the task. Building a fairer society is not a matter of one Bill and we cannot simply legislate for a better world. The measures that we put in place must recognise the world as it is if they are to have any chance of shaping the world as it should be. Empty gestures have no place in our law. If we concentrate on effective measures to tackle discrimination and on providing a fair legal framework, we can help to build on the social progress that those before us fought so hard to achieve.