Equality Bill

The more I listen to the noble Lord, the more I find, as was the case when I listened to the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, that I am glad that my name has been added to the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain. It simply is not true to say that those on this Bench have no interest in or respect for proportionality, and of course that is engaged in all this. I have a vivid memory of conversations I had in my previous post with a Muslim cleaning lady in a voluntary aided church school in the middle of Stoke-on-Trent. She was entirely properly engaged there and, rather intriguingly, she was extremely impressed with the Christian religion as she found it enunciated in the school that her children attended. But it was entirely right that she should be an employee of the school in that role. It is of course true that proportionality is a requirement in European law, but as I understand it, the 2003 regulations, as Her Majesty’s Government successfully argued in the Amicus case, themselves strike a proportionate balance and there is no need for the legislation itself to employ the term in order to achieve proportionality. Indeed, as the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, so carefully drew out—it is a privilege to be among those who support the amendments with her—adding the word "proportionate" now is likely to change the interpretation that the courts will make of this legislation. It will require the courts to inquire into the precise nature of the particular religious doctrines in order to discover what is the minimum necessary to comply with them. I am advised that the existing 2003 legislation already complies with EU proportionality requirements without giving rise to legal wrangles of this kind about doctrines. That seems to be common sense and sounds to me, although I am not a lawyer, like responsible law. The question that has not been adequately answered is why the Government, having said all along that they are consolidating and replicating—we have heard that word this afternoon—find themselves introducing this fresh material when, again so far as I understand it, they won the case in the High Court which alone could justify bringing the word "proportionate" into the sections that Amendments 98 and 99 seek to remove it from, and thus go down the road of Clause 2(8) as it appears in the Bill. As others have said, the beauty of Amendments 98 and 99 is that they restore the status quo, which we believe to be entirely defensible. I am not convinced by the noble Lord’s language about the magnanimity of the Government. On the contrary, I reacted with a real pang of regret when the Minister said that she still sees no problem with Clause 2(8), but perhaps it was important to "clarify but not change", to use her words. However, it is precisely because the subsection is so profoundly objectionable to us that the only way forward is its removal, and here I bring into play the considerations enunciated by the noble Lord, Lord Pilkington. I shall not go into the detail so beautifully laid out by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, which makes it clear why we reckon that government Amendment 99A will make for a great many more problems than removing the amendments altogether.