My Lords, to amplify briefly what I said before, Amendment 19 is completely unnecessary because the part of the Equality Act that it is seeking to amend defines protected characteristics in order to deal with discrimination, harassment and victimisation. In relation to those protected characteristics, it is clear beyond argument that if A is treated worse than B because of his or her opinions about sexuality, sex, marriage, communism, Sikhism, Judaism or anything under the sun, they are fully protected by the amendment that the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, made to the criminal law, and by the Human Rights Act and Articles 9 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
I am sorry that the noble Lord thinks that a Bill designed to prevent people becoming victims of unfair treatment is creating victims of unfair treatment. The fact that idiots in the public sector or private sector misunderstand it is no reason for us to have to amend this Bill to deal with such idiots. With respect, the state of the law is plain and obvious. It does not require this amendment. Were this amendment to be accepted, it would muddle up the entire concept of the Equality Act, which we took so long to get right.