I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, for her sterling work in getting Section 9(5)(a) on the statute book. In 2010, I moved the amendment with the full support of the Government after a meeting attended by large numbers of people representing the anti-discrimination organisations up and down the country and at which the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, was present. I think that she was suitably impressed by the unanimity of the views expressed at that meeting.
I should also like to pay tribute to the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, for his sterling work as chair of the All-Party Group for Dalits and for the support that he has always given to the promotion of this provision in the Equality Act. I have worked out that it is nearly three years since the House agreed to insert that provision into the Equality Act, giving the Government the power to add caste to the list of protected characteristics. The Anti Caste Discrimination Alliance had presented evidence that caste discrimination existed in the UK, and the Dalit organisations represented by the ACDA and CasteWatchUK had unanimously requested Parliament to act on the matter. Giving the Government this power was a first step, followed rapidly by, as we have heard, the commissioning of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research study, to confirm what the ACDA had already discovered. The results were published on 16 December 2010 and indeed it found the required evidence, although I am sorry to say that the study was a fairly perfunctory exercise. Even so, it produced the required evidence of discrimination.
When the Government were first asked for their reaction to the NIESR report, they were cautious, but immediately indicated that the coalition was looking for ways of avoiding the issue. They said that this was a different Government from the one that had commissioned the NIESR study and that it had to be considered in the context of their own equality strategy. They needed to consider whether activating Section 9(5)(a) would be “reasonable and proportionate”—words that are repeated in most of the Government’s pro forma statements since then—bearing in mind that a lot of people would be affected by it.
Of course, if there is a great deal of caste discrimination, a lot of people would be affected, but we had understood previously that there were doubts about the existence of discrimination. Now there was at least tacit acknowledgement that this “abhorrent practice”, as the Government called it, was occurring here. But the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, seemed to have already
made up her mind that legislation would not deal with the issues behind it. Equally, one could say that legislation did not stamp out the societal roots of racism, misogyny or homophobia. However, it was the main tool for dealing with the overt manifestations of prejudice and a powerful signal of society’s disapproval of the underlying ingrained attitudes of hatred and prejudice against the other.
Having acknowledged that caste discrimination exists, it would be grossly illogical to forgo the use of a weapon against it that is proving effective in the case of all the other protected characteristics in the Equality Act; that is, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, and sex and sexual orientation. I suggest that there would have to be some reason of principle as to why caste should be treated differently from all those other characteristics. Of course, there is none. We have to analyse the statements of Ministers both verbally and in writing to see what the Government’s real motives are.
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In that first exchange on the subject, the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, spoke about consultations and meetings with people right across the caste system to ensure that both sides of the argument were put. Obviously, people who are the targets of discrimination are in favour of the legislation, while communities containing those who discriminate are on the whole, although not unanimously, against it, as we have heard. People in those communities who think legislation is the right answer may be reluctant to speak out if they do not agree with the views of their leaders. However, no rational person would give equal weight to the two opposing sets of views any more than they would nowadays to men who continue to oppose gender equality, or people who believe they belong to a superior race.
Since then, as we heard, the matter has been raised repeatedly with my honorable friend Lynne Featherstone, then Minister for Equalities, until we received her reply, particularly to a letter from the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, to the Home Secretary, that she did not consider that it would be advantageous to have another meeting on the subject. We came to the conclusion that Ministers’ policy was to avoid discussing the subject—an unusual breach of the usual courtesies. We found it hard to believe the Government’s mantra, repeated by my honorable friend, that they were,
“still carefully considering the NIESR .... report together with the various representations that have been received on this matter, within the broad context of our Equality Strategy”.
A variation on that theme arose, however, from the Answer to a Written Question by my noble friend Lady Verma, who said that—we have heard this before—
“there is no consensus of opinion in the UK with regards to the need for legislative protection against caste discrimination, even among those communities potentially most affected by it”.—[Official Report, 23/11/11; col. WA240.]
As the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, explained, we interpreted the expression,
“those communities potentially most affected by it”,
as meaning the Dalits, who are obviously the targets of this brand of discrimination, and we pressed for details of the organisations that were referred to in this Answer. It turned out that my noble friend actually meant the higher castes from which those doing the discriminating are drawn. It was as if we had said in the old days that we could not legislate against racial discrimination because there were organisations representing white people who were potentially most affected, and that because they were against it, there was no consensus. As the noble and right reverend Lord put it, that is tantamount to saying that this argument would have meant doing nothing about apartheid.
The most significant expression of anti-legislation views, of which the Government were aware, according to the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, was at a single meeting chaired by my noble friend Lord Dholakia on 15 March 2011, attended by the Hindu Council and the Hindu Forum, at which a note was taken of the speeches by two officials of the Government Equalities Office.
No official of the department was able to attend a meeting that I chaired on 29 November at which representatives of Dalit organisations throughout the country unanimously renewed their demand for action. When I sent a copy of their statement to the Secretary of State and Minister for Equalities, she merely observed that it was not clear whether commencing Section 9(5)(a) would be the best and most proportionate way of addressing the issue. On the other side of the equation we have the Equality and Human Rights Commission, as has already been mentioned, one of the functions of which I understood from the Minister’s reply to Amendment 27, which we discussed earlier, was to make recommendations on how best to achieve equality. The EHRC has said plainly that it believes in implementing this legislation, as can be seen from the announcement on its website.
Many other organisations were referred to briefly by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries. NIESR has reiterated its finding as recently as 8 January and the evidence collected strongly suggested that caste discrimination and harassment, including the type that would fall under the Equality Act, exists in Britain. The Joint Committee on Human Rights has drawn the Government’s attention to the recommendation in the UN’s Universal Periodic Review that the provision be implemented. The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has made recommendations on the subject, but none of these considerations is reflected in the responses we have had so far from Ministers. It would be useful if my noble friend could at least acknowledge that they are being given the due weight that should be attached to the views of national and international organisations. Fortunately, in democracies the views of minorities do not prevail in the end. If the Government come to a decision not to do anything about caste—as appears likely from everything that they say on the subject—I hope that they will at least allow a free vote on the subject when it is debated on the Floor of the House.
Internationally, there is certainly a consensus that caste should be treated as a protected characteristic. It is now up to the Government to show that while
legislation is thought the best and most appropriate way of dealing with all the other protected characteristics in the Act, caste is in some way qualitatively different and therefore needs a different set of remedies. They must show also that the nature of caste discrimination is fundamentally different from discrimination with regard to the eight existing characteristics, each of which has its own peculiarities. What they all have in common—and also share with caste—is that a person with the characteristic in question is seen as being worthy of disrespect and of being treated in a less favourable manner than someone who belongs to the same group as the discriminator. If the Government can conjure up a description of the process of discrimination that applies to the eight existing characteristics but not to caste, I would be surprised—but I hope that the noble Baroness will make an attempt in her reply.
I will end on a marginally less pessimistic note. In her letter of 6 December, the Secretary of State said that she hoped to make an announcement on this matter in the new year. I interpret that as meaning January. At least we will know where we stand. Both those who believe passionately in the need for this legislation and those who believe that caste discrimination should be tackled by other means will be able to take the Government’s views and decision into account when they make up their mind on how to vote in future elections.