Equality Bill

To follow up the issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, it is extremely important that we have a Report stage, because many of the concessions or differences can be crystallised only at Report. The longer that we go on in Committee, the more difficult it becomes. One answer to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is that this will be done before Report, otherwise we will have been scrutinising carefully and with high quality but it will be a waste of time in the outcome, because the Bill will then leave this House without a Report stage and we will have that dreadful thing called "wash-up". We are very concerned that there will be a Report stage, where all this can be dealt with.