Equality Bill

I am grateful to the Minister and to everyone who has spoken in this short debate. The Women’s National Commission said in its briefing that it supports the concept of representative actions as a means of speeding up equal pay claims and taking the pressure off individual women who often do not have the confidence to pursue claims against their employers, even if they are represented by unions. It continues: ""Unequal pay is often systemic rather than individual, requiring an overhaul of an entire pay system, not just compensation to a few brave individuals"." That was the point the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, made in her important speech. The citizens advice bureaux network, which is a grass roots body throughout the country, deals helpfully with representative proceedings. I shall not go through what it says now but it makes extremely intelligent suggestions about how the procedure already existing in the civil courts under civil procedure rule 19.6 might be invoked. I should say to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, that I am not in favour of class actions American style; and I am not in favour of lawyers getting a big cut out of damages claims on behalf of women. I welcome the fact that the conditional fee agreement scheme is to be cut back so that greedy lawyers cannot do that. I am not in favour of any of that. All I am seeking is limited procedural reforms on the lines of what we already have. On Friday morning I am going to address the Trades Union Congress annual meeting on equality, at which about 400 or 500 people will attend. I have had the privilege of doing so for the past 10 years and I always give a report on the progress, or lack of it, that we have made. I promise the Government that on Friday I shall tell the people there what has happened in this debate and I shall ask each and every one of them and their organisations to write to the Minister because I cannot think of any other way to do this. We will have to use muscle if necessary—but muscle should not be necessary for a simple procedural reform. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 92 withdrawn. Clause 79 : Colleagues Amendments 93 to 96 Clause 79 : Colleagues Amendments 93 to 96 Moved by