Equality Bill

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that very detailed response. I also thank noble Lords who have contributed to a very interesting and rather wide-ranging debate—much wider-ranging than I anticipated when the amendment was drafted. In particular, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Warner, because he spoke from a great deal of experience and gave what I thought was an unanswerable case that, when you have a transfer of employees from one employment to another, any union will do its best to ensure that the transfer that takes place does not mean a worsening of employment conditions for those employees. As far as this amendment was concerned, the idea was to ensure that people did not face demands in relation to their employment when a transfer was taking place that they had not had to face when they first took employment with a public service. The right reverend Prelate contributed substantially to this debate, as he has on previous occasions. What does he think would be the case for an individual who is being transferred from one employment to another and, when he or she turns to that employment with a religious ethos, suddenly has to face a change in conditions that he or she had not anticipated when he or she first took that employment? If he or she had to face a situation in which sexual orientation was part of the requirement, or requirements in relation to sexual orientation were something that had to be considered that he or she had not had to consider at all in first taking the employment, it would be quite unacceptable. My noble friend made it clear that that was not the Government’s intention. We have had a substantial number of assurances from the Government, which I should like time to consider, because this is a very complicated matter. I accept that in certain respects what has been suggested was not really required, because it is covered. I accept what was said in relation to Amendment 101ZA—namely, that it is not necessary to insert "genuine" before "occupational requirement". That point was made by the noble Lord, Lord Lester, and I accept it completely. I thank him for that and for his detailed contribution on this rather complicated question. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 101ZA withdrawn Amendments 101A to 101C not moved. House resumed. Moved by