Equality Bill

I support the ideas behind this amendment—we heard what the noble Lord, Lord Lester, had to say about it—because I recall that when I was a trade union official, when the union wanted to secure equal pay for sections of women workers and wanted to use the legislation, it was necessary to find an individual member in whose name the case could be taken to a tribunal. If the case was won, it was then possible to get the decision carried through to the remainder of the workforce involved. But there was of course a problem. Someone had to be prepared to stand up herself, on behalf of everyone. Of course, it was done. The case to which the noble Lord, Lord Lester, has drawn attention was the case of speech therapists, who were members of my union, and we were fortunate in finding one member, a test-case member, who was willing to go the whole length—the whole 11 years—that it took before we eventually won that case. She was a remarkable woman, but you cannot always rely on exceptional individuals. She is now a professor at Leeds University, in charge of research. She was in every way an exceptional person, but you cannot rely on finding one of those in every case that you wish to take before a tribunal. It would be so much simpler, as has been indicated, if we were able to take representative cases for the whole group of members; and there is also a case, of course, arguing that it should not just be for equal pay cases but across the whole spectrum of equality governed by the Bill, in which case we would need very different wording. I was in fact approached by a group that wanted a set of wording rather different from that of the noble Lord, Lord Lester, which would enable any equality case to be dealt with on a representative basis, if the union sought to do so. We will maybe consider that at Report. This is certainly an issue which ought to be dealt with by the Government either in the way suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Lester, or perhaps with the aim of a different amendment at Report, when we can take it across the whole spectrum of equalities in order to ensure that representative action can be taken instead of relying on exceptional individuals. They are few and far between, and you cannot always find people who are willing to go the full distance, as did this particular member in this particular case.