Equality Bill

My Lords, in the first instance when we were drafting the Bill we did not consider that such a provision was needed, as the very fact that the DDA and the Bill impose a duty on an individual implies that the individual should bear the costs of complying with the reasonable adjustment duty. If the duty could be read as meaning that it only had to be complied with if costs were met by someone else, the legislation would have made that clear. This is the case in relation to the duty to make alterations to the common parts, as paragraph 7(3) of Schedule 4 provides that it is reasonable to expect that the costs be paid by a disabled person. In addition, as far as we know, there have not been any reported cases of attempts to pass on the costs of the reasonable adjustments. However, while our position was absolutely clear, the disability lobby felt that there was still some confusion or that this was misleading, and questioned whether the subsection about disability-related discrimination could be justified. This is a sort of belt-and-braces thing to clarify the position, and to ensure and to make explicit that the costs of a reasonable adjustment should not be passed on to an individual disabled person. We wanted to make it absolutely clear that we wanted disabled people themselves to feel secure that they were not going to have any additional burdens. That is the reason for this amendment. Amendment 45ZA agreed. Amendments 45A and 45B not moved. Clause 20 agreed. House resumed. Committee to begin again not before 8.22 pm. Clause 21 : Failure to comply with duty Amendments 45C and 45D not moved. Clause 21 agreed. Clause 22 : Regulations Clause 22 : Regulations Amendment 45E not moved. Clause 22 agreed. Clauses 23 and 24 agreed. Clause 25 : References to particular strands of discrimination Clause 25 : References to particular strands of discrimination Amendments 46 to 50 not moved. Clause 25 agreed. Clause 26 : Harassment Amendment 51 Clause 26 : Harassment Amendment 51 Moved by