Equality Bill

My Lords, I have already declared my interests at the start of Committee stage. There is a further interest I should declare as a churchwarden in the Church of England in the County of Somerset in the benefice of Chewton Mendip and Emborough. In that capacity, I have come across several examples of the situations that we are now debating. The problem here is that there are two separate issues. The noble Lord, Lord Alli, wants to remove any possibility of there being a requirement related to sexual orientation for any form of employment. The second amendment, which is on a separate issue, means that there would be no ban on allowing civil partnerships to take place on religious premises. As I understood it from the noble Lord—several noble Lords who have participated in this debate have echoed this—the second amendment is intended to be permissive. In other words, his intention is not to force religious premises to hold civil partnership ceremonies but to allow them to do so with their permission. I recall, as he reminded us, that on Second Reading the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester suggested he would be happy to get into discussions with the noble Lord regarding his suggestion of, ""some sort of permissive arrangement for the faith communities"," which, he said, ""would be worthy of careful discussion". [Official Report, 15/12/09; col. 1449.]" I have not yet heard what has been the result of those discussions and whether there were any further ideas brought to the table. This topic ought to be thought through with the seriousness that it deserves. As we have just been reminded, there were debates on this issue when the Civil Partnership Bill was in Committee in this House. I remember that we were informed by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Scotland, that civil partnerships were to, ""stay absolutely within the secular field and do not trespass on the different and sometimes conflicting religious beliefs of others, who may adhere to a plethora of religions". [Official Report, 12/05/04; col. 140.]" As I understood the position, therefore, both civil marriage and civil partnerships were to mirror each other and remain entirely secular. That is what we decided. In other words, to carry out a civil partnership ceremony in a religious premises would be a breach of the law. The Government have therefore made their views well known on this subject. We on these Benches would agree with their view. The civil partnership ceremony and the civil marriage ceremony are considered equally and neither can take place on religious premises. The debates on the Civil Partnership Act informed us that, while the actual ceremony could not take place on religious premises, a religious centre would then be allowed to act in whatever way it wished as regards the couple. They could, for example, give them a blessing—we have had one example of this—or add some other religious element to the day. Perhaps the Minister could inform the House whether this is still the case. Does the Minister have any figures or estimates as to the number of couples who add a religious element on to the end of their civil partnership? Indeed, has any research taken place to think through the impact of the proposals being made by the noble Lord? I strongly agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, that we have come a long way. I greatly welcome the fact that we have done so, but we must pause for a moment and consider how much further we should go in what is a very sensitive area. The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Alli, would prevent sexual orientation ever being a requirement for a position of employment, and I think he recognises that what he says involves controversy. He does not believe that anyone should be sacked from or persecuted in their job or vocation because of their sexuality. However, does he accept that whatever his intentions, which we can understand, this would be an attack on the central doctrines or tenets of various religious organisations, some of them very influential in our lives? We have to address more fully the scope of exemptions applied to employment regulations, which we will do in later debates. Perhaps it suffices to say now that we believe it is right to preserve the status quo regarding employment provisions, but when the noble Lord comes to consider what action to take, I would like to ask him whether he considers that religious organisations that believe in gender specification being a requirement for employment, such as the Roman Catholic church which believes that women should not be priests, should be allowed to make such specifications? Also, if he believes that sexual orientation should not be allowed to be part of a specification for employment, what is his reasoning behind allowing gender and certain other characteristics to remain? We would argue that they should remain as they are, but if the noble Lord is interested in changing the law for one characteristic, he has to look at the possibility of changing it for others as well, which is why we on these Benches are not minded to support his amendment.