Equality Bill

My Lords, I shall say a word or two about the drafting of the clause and what it really seems to be aiming at. I do that by starting from Amendment 2, proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton. The Committee may notice that his proposal is that the authority in question should "exercise its functions" by paying, ""particular regard to ensuring greater equality of income as a means to promote well-being and sustainability"." In other words, his amendment is directed towards removing the socio-economic disadvantage. That is its fundamental purpose. It is one of the only ways in which socio-economic disadvantage can be dealt with: the amount of money available to people should be more equal than it is. The clause, as drafted, does not attempt to deal with socio-economic disadvantage; it tends to deal with the consequences. In other words, it seems to accept the existence of socio-economic disadvantage and then try to deal with the outcomes that flow from it. That is what it says—not socio-economic disadvantage itself, but the outcomes that result from it. No one can doubt that there are disadvantages that result from socio-economic situations. The noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, referred to some of these, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker—for example, and perhaps particularly, in the area of health. A clause that deals only with outcomes resulting from a situation seems hardly adequate to address the problem. If there is socio-economic disadvantage, there is, almost inevitably, an outcome from that. That is what the research seems to show. Therefore, if this policy is to be useful, it would need to deal with the socio-economic disadvantage itself. The amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, goes directly to that. Is that what the clause should be talking about, or should it be talking about something different? The existence of socio-economic disadvantage and its consequences is something that I, personally, would like to see eliminated as far as possible. I am sure that this is true generally. The question of how you achieve that is another matter. All I am doing is drawing attention to the fact that the clause, as drafted, seems to deal only with the consequences of something that is accepted as being in existence. The amendment that has been proposed—to insert "opportunity" instead of "outcome"—is, I think, intended to be directed to the removal of socio-economic disadvantage, rather than accepting that it happens and trying to deal with its consequences. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, that this clause could certainly benefit from a degree of adjustment and a degree of clarity about what exactly we are seeking to achieve, possibly by means of examples. The noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, has done us a great service by raising a particular example. Do we mean that to happen under this clause? Do we mean that Treasury Ministers, in deciding on salaries in the Civil Service or the Government, should aim at getting all salaries to be much the same? That is one way to get rid of the socio-economic disadvantage of the Parliamentary Secretary, as against the Secretary of State. I am not sure whether government policy would necessarily go that far. This is the problem that the clause raises and it is important that the clause should be as precise as possible. I also very much agree with the noble Lord, Lord Morris, that if you want to raise expectations, you have to have something that will justify that raising of expectations and can be seen to work. At the moment I find it difficult to see how, with the best will in the world, this measure will work. Apart from anything else, it talks about strategic decisions. I would prefer to cut that out and talk about all decisions. I do not think that "strategic" adds anything. Indeed, I remember that when I was Lord Chancellor I wrote a letter to the Lords Lieutenant that included the adjective "strategic". I got a letter back from a Lord Lieutenant, I think in Wales, saying that he would be glad if, in future correspondence, I would omit "strategic" because it did not mean anything anyway. I pass that advice to the Government. Clause 3 talks about enforceability and uses a curious phrase. It states: ""A failure in respect of a performance of a duty under section 1 does not confer a cause of action at private law"." What exactly is intended to be excluded by that I am not certain, because I think that, if this were a duty at all, it would probably be a public law duty. However, the object of that clause seems to be to prevent the learned friends of my noble friend Lord Tebbit from getting a paid holiday. Whatever the reason, it seems to me to require clarity, because unless the clause contains enforcement procedures, it will not justify the expectations that were raised of it at the outset. What the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, said about outcome and opportunity and the work of the late Lord Young of Dartington falls to be taken into account in this connection, because I rather think that, in seeking to eliminate the socio-economic disadvantage, you need freedom of opportunity and freedom of outcome.