Equality Bill

First, I will deal with the issue of the inadvertent omission from the Bill and the way in which the Government have dealt with this. I apologised in the first instance and I share the concern expressed by the noble Lord that it is only at this stage that those omissions have become obvious. Am I embarrassed? Yes. Am I angry? Yes. Am I frustrated? Yes. That does not mean that I do not think that the Bill was scrutinised in the other place. Clearly, there is something lacking in the scrutiny of the other place. That is not to say that they did not have enough time. I believe that quality rather than quantity is of importance. I am very proud in this House of the fact that we give qualitative appraisal and scrutiny of Bills. I apologise to all noble Lords. The noble Lord will not be surprised to hear that I will not be taking him up on his kind offer. However, I have asked the Bill team to toothcomb the rest of the Bill to ensure that we are not in a similar situation during later stages. General qualifications, such as GCSEs and A-levels, are a core part of our education system. They recognise and reflect what young people have achieved and they help promote the skills and knowledge that are essential for future prosperity. It is vital that all young people are able to access qualifications to allow them to progress to further opportunities in learning and work. Therefore, the qualification regulators, which are given functions under Clause 96, must have equality as a priority and they will, of course, be covered by the public sector equality duty. As the noble Lord, Lord Low, said in his, as usual, eloquent speech, of all aspects of equality it is access to qualifications for disabled people which can be a particular challenge. We need a system which will design qualifications and assessments which are as accessible as possible to those with disabilities. The statistics given by my noble friend Lady Wilkins were indeed shocking. I am grateful to all noble Lords for their support on Amendment 106AZA, which was laid as a result of discussions with the noble Lord, Lord Low. My ministerial colleague, Iain Wright of DCSF, recently met the noble Lord, along with the EHRC and Ofqual, to discuss his concerns. At that discussion, the noble Lord made a compelling case that the Bill appeared not to give sufficient weight to the importance of access. That was certainly not the intention, so the Government accepted that this amendment should be made. It requires the regulators to have regard to the need to minimise the extent to which disabled people are disadvantaged. We hoped that this amendment would satisfy the noble Lord, but he has tabled three further amendments, so he clearly still has concerns. His first amendment requires the regulators to have due regard to the three factors listed. Legally, there is no substantive difference between "regard" and "due regard". It is clear that the regulators have to take account of the three factors listed. The phrase "have regard" is the same as that used in the Act establishing Ofqual, so it seems appropriate that the same phrase should be used here. His second amendment changes subsection 8(a) to refer to avoiding, ""substantial disadvantage to disabled persons"." We believe that the wording in the Bill is appropriate. It sends a clear and powerful signal about the importance of access. If the regulator could not demonstrate that it had minimised disadvantage, it could be challenged in the courts, so I am not convinced that this amendment makes any substantive difference. His final amendment leaves out subsection 8(c), which refers to confidence. Confidence is the currency of qualifications. Of course, it must be informed confidence. No regulator would or should be guided by prejudice or whim. If it was, it would risk breaching its general equality duty. I heard what the noble Lord said about Ofqual’s duty in respect of confidence, but I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. In the Government’s view, the damage to disabled people if their qualifications were no longer trusted would be incalculable. If we accepted this amendment, we would be doing a disservice to many disabled people. Consideration of public confidence is unlikely to affect whether a regulator decides to specify areas where the duty to make reasonable adjustments does not apply, but it might affect which adjustments the regulator concluded were appropriate. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, asked whether subsections 8(b) and 8(c) outweigh subsection 8(a). The regulator would need to take all three factors into account and show that it had done so. The subsections need to be balanced against each other. No one factor is more important than the others. With that explanation, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Low, will not move his amendments. Amendment 106AZA agreed. Amendments 106AZB and 106AZC Moved by