My Lords, I am very glad of the opportunity to intervene briefly in this debate and should declare an interest in regard to my involvement with Mencap Wales, Autism Cymru and a number of other disability organisations. I congratulate warmly the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, on introducing this important amendment. I agree with what she said, as I did with the noble Lord, Lord Low.
I recall the battles in the 1990s to establish disability rights. Those battles were led by Lord Ashley, Lord Morris, John Hannam and others, across party boundaries, because of the importance of enshrining in law the principles of rights. My fear is that we are in danger of a movement backwards today.
The general duty is necessary to avoid regulatory gaps or the effect of overlaps. Rather than being repealed, it should, if anything, be amended to establish more clearly the EHRC’s overriding purpose, powers and duties and to support the focus on being an equality regulator and a general human rights institution.
I have concern also about the proposal to move from a three-year to a five-year progress report cycle. There is a real danger here that if the cycle were to start coinciding with the electoral cycle, we could find many of these issues becoming politicised, which is in nobody’s interest. I have further reservations about the repeal of the conciliation powers, which would amount to the loss of the EHRC’s wide-ranging, background role in monitoring the effects of legislation.
The Government need to make a very strong case for repealing Section 3 as the Bill proposes, and I doubt that they can do so. If they are not prepared to think again between now and Report, we should support similar amendments at that stage in the Chamber in order to give the EHRC and all involved in disability the strongest possible messages.