Equality Bill

That is quite correct. The amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lester, would mean that a broadcaster would not fall foul of the provisions regarding discrimination, as he has just explained, as laid out in Clause 29, which is headed, "Provisions of goods and services". Amendment 113, which I now speak to, would mean that the persons involved in commissioning, content, and broadcast of programmes, would be excluded from those groups who have due regard to the public sector equality duty. Amendment 114, in the names of my noble friends, would mean that any function connected with these activities would also be excluded. We on these Benches think that it is wrong to include the content produced by public service broadcasters under the provisions of the Bill. The risk is that there would be inappropriate control and interference with their editorial independence, which could risk damaging the creative process, of which we are all very proud in this country, and may risk artificial constraints being placed on the range and depth of programming. I am sure that the whole House would not want to encourage that. In another place, we received assurance that the Government completely agreed that the public sector equality duty should not apply to the commissioning, content and broadcast of programmes. As I understand it, the Government have produced a new website—lastminuteamendment.com. I carefully researched this website, which has been fully populated of late, particularly yesterday—we have yet to come to those amendments— but I could not see any amendment about this matter. Will the Minister point me in the right direction to find these exclusions? If we are still waiting for them to be drafted, could we have some idea of what timescale is involved?