Equality Bill

My Lords, I very much welcome this amendment, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, to clarify the application of the public sector equality duty, for Ofqual is just the start. On further examination, the schedule proves to be full of holes. I am very concerned to observe that it contains numerous omissions—if an omission can be said to be ““contained””. I hope that that is just the result of the sort of unfortunate oversight that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, was so exercised about the other day. On the assumption that it is, I hope that the Government will commit to remedying the deficiencies in the schedule before it leaves this House. The Government have given numerous commitments that all organisations covered by the current duties will be covered by the integrated duty. Exclusions that I have noticed include the Electoral Commission, which is surprising when one considers that only recently we were debating political diversity. The NHS is included, but none of its regulators are. The omission of regulators in general is concerning, as is the omission of a number of educational bodies. The General Teaching Council is just one example. As an avid supporter of the arts, I was particularly concerned not to see the Arts Council in the schedule. I could go on, but I shall not. It just remains for the Government to fulfil their commitments and put the schedule to rights. Of course they have the power to change the list by regulation, but they should not expect the Committee to buy a pig in a poke like that. They should populate the schedule comprehensively and reserve their order-making power for amending the list when bodies are created or wound-up. I therefore very much support the amendment.