I do not propose to divide the House today and I am happy that we have got to a place where the Bill has been effectively gutted by their lordships. I am happy with the cross-party consensus on where we have got to. It is right that we have removed the third-party liability, but there is something regrettable about the way this Bill has developed. There was a good moment when, in response to pressure from their lordships, the Government proposed to introduce a new defence against Equality Act harassment, whereby it should be possible to defend a suit on the grounds that there was no intention to injure the injured party, and merely overheard conversations and civil discussions, be they among colleagues or customers, should not be liable to legal action. That was a good step; it developed and improved our equalities law. In response to pressure from the other place, the Government have now withdrawn the third-party liability measure, which is a good thing. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Anna Firth) that we are now in a position to abstain from opposing this Bill.
However, we need to debate our equalities framework in this country. Fundamentally, we need to stop bringing forward what I call performative legislation intended simply to outlaw behaviour we disapprove of, immoral conversations, bad manners, and action likely to cause hurt and distress. We cannot legislate against all of those actions and if we try—