Equality Bill

My Lords, the amendment is tabled in order to ask the Minister why there is a need to replicate provisions in the Disability Discrimination Act. Perhaps she can inform the House of the reasons for this exception. Baroness Thornton: My Lords, Amendment 59 proposes the deletion of paragraph 30 of Schedule 3 which, at present, disapplies Clause 29—"Provision of Services, etc."—in Part 3 of the Bill in relation to transport by air in the context of disability discrimination and I am happy to expand on the need for this part of the Bill. The Bill does not make it lawful to discriminate in the provision of services on board aircraft. Part 7 of Schedule 3 provides exceptions with regard to services and public functions only in relation to disability discrimination. The exemption with regard to disability is justified because a specific European regulation protects disabled air passengers against discrimination. European regulation 1107/2006 made it illegal for airlines to refuse to carry disabled and less mobile passengers, and airlines have to give assistance to all people of reduced mobility, including blind people. The EU regulation is directly applicable to the UK. The enforcement regime is provided by means of a regulation contained in statutory instrument 2007/1895. Aviation is an international business and, as such, it makes sense to make rules on aviation issues internationally. We have a good new European law which has only recently come into effect in the UK. We therefore consider it unnecessary to change the current position whereby air transport services are exempt from the services provisions of the Disability Discrimination Act. Indeed, it would be inappropriate to do so. The existing law will apply to aircraft in respect of all strands other than disability, where European law applies. Therefore no amendment is necessary. The amendment appears to be based on a misunderstanding, although I realise that it is a probing amendment. In seeking to delete paragraph 30, the amendment would delete the carve-out in paragraph 32, which is made in favour of European regulation 1107/2006, and this would be wholly inappropriate. A disabled British passenger travelling by air in Europe knows that under the European regulation he or she is entitled to the same level of assistance in all 27 countries of the European Union and we do not want to damage that position in any way. It would be insufficient to rely only on domestic legislation in this area. To do so would result in different strands applying in different countries and would give little reassurance to disabled passengers travelling abroad in Europe. I ask the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.