Equality Bill

My Lords, that is a very interesting point at which to rise. I noted earlier the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Coity, about his commitment to his religion over his commitment to his political party. As a Muslim I am quite concerned these days to talk about my commitment to my faith as opposed to my commitment to anything else because I may occasionally be seen as a security risk. On Amendments 98, 99 and 100 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, or the alternative government Amendment 99A, we have heard addressed the definition of employment, ""for the purposes of an organised religion"." Powerful arguments have been put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. As the law stands, where the employment is for the purposes of organised religion, an employer may apply a requirement for a person to be of a particular sex, or not to be a transsexual person, or make a requirement on the basis of the employee’s marriage or civil partnership status or sexual orientation, as long as the requirement is in line with a genuine occupational requirement, ""for the purposes of an organised religion"." We believe that the Bill as currently drafted significantly narrows the scope of roles which would be included as, ""for the purposes of an organised religion"." It does this by narrowing the definition of employment in this context to those roles which "wholly or mainly" involve, ""leading or assisting in the observance of liturgical or ritualistic practices of the religion,"" or, ""promoting or explaining the doctrine of religion"." There is a clear difference between a more general "purposes of all religion" and the more narrow specification of what that entails. The current law is contained in regulation 7(3) of the Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003, which states that a requirement may only be imposed by religious organisations "so as to comply" with religious doctrine or "so as to avoid conflicting" with religious convictions. The drafting of the Bill would add a requirement to be proportionate, which introduces another layer of legal necessity and so means that it is further removed from the status quo. As this Bill made its progress through another place and your Lordships’ House, the Government have stuck firmly by their claim that they have only clarified and not narrowed the definition. I would question this for two reasons. First, the Government have claimed that there is a need to clarify the language. In another place, the Solicitor-General stated that, ""there has been some confusion about what is meant by ‘the purposes of an organised religion’",—[Official Report, Commons Equality Bill Committee, 23/06/09; col. 455.]" and that further clarity was needed to "clear up misunderstandings". Yet we have seen no evidence of this. The only support we have heard for this claim of confusion is that there may have been some newspaper advertisements which claimed the exceptions were applicable to jobs when they should not have been applied. Can the Minister therefore tell us whether there has been any court or tribunal case about specific newspaper articles, and can she inform the Committee what evidence there is of detriment being suffered which would warrant the change in the law? I should state that I would be expecting to see a great deal of evidence to merit that change. The Government have stated time and again that they are not changing the law one iota, but just clarifying it. The fact that they have stuck so firmly to this line, in the face of almost overwhelming opposition and evidence to the contrary, suggests that there must be a powerful argument, backed up by powerful evidence, for the need for this further clarity. Secondly, the Minister will not be surprised to hear that we would like to raise the European Commission’s reasoned opinion 226. Noble Lords will now be aware that the exemptions for organised religion passed in 2003 were broader than those allowed by the employment directive of 2000. Paragraph 19 of the reasoned opinion stated, however, that: ""The UK Government has informed the Commission that the new Equality Bill currently … before the UK Parliament will amend this aspect of the law and bring UK law into line with the Directive"." This brings us to a difficult situation. We have been told that the Government have not changed the law at all, just clarified it. The European Commission has been told, although I hear what the Minister says in response, that it has indeed been narrowed to fit with the directive. Perhaps the Minister could—