Equality Bill

My Lords, I congratulate the Government on holding fast to their clause which is subject to the amendment. The criticism of it by the Joint Committee on Human Rights is not well founded. I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, that many of the examples that we have had cited to us are really quite extraordinary and in no way based on the law as we have it. The sooner that that is manifest, the better it will be for all of us. There are just too many of them, and they are not all one-sided either—they go in every possible direction. The sooner that this stops, the better it will be. I am not sure that I can practically address exactly how to stop it, but I believe that it can be addressed to some extent in the guidance that the Government will offer on the Equality Bill when, as I hope, it becomes law. As for the funding of public services provided by religious institutions, the Government are funding, with taxpayers’ money, the service that the institutions provide. In all cases that I can imagine, the Government think that it is perfectly reasonable that adoption agencies, care agencies and so on are provided with government money because the care, adoptions and so on, are services that the Government wish. The fact that there is a variety of them with a variety of religious ethos—I am not too sure of the proper plural—is helpful. There are a lot of different people in our community, and some can benefit from one type of religious services and others from other types. The noble Lord, Lord Lester, said that there was no definition of religion in the Bill. In a sense there is, because it says that "religion" includes no religion, and "belief" includes having no belief. In a sense, that is a kind of definition; it may not take you very far, but at least it is there. The Government may feel that the amendment is unnecessary. I am not sure what their attitude will be. However, a clear statement by Her Majesty’s Government from the Dispatch Box that the amendment is unnecessary would serve quite a good purpose.