My Lords, the noble Lord raises a very important point, but is it not the case that many public institutions—including, I am afraid, this House in the past—have signed up to various highly controversial charters and indexes which require a standard of behaviour from the people covered by those institutions? At a national level, many of these bodies are cowed by aggressive minority interests into establishing and setting out these programmes.
For an individual employee working in those situations, it can be very intimidating to say, “I don’t agree with the Stonewall equality index and don’t see why my institution has signed up to it”. I am glad to say that this House, after a lot of pressure and with weasel words, eventually decided not to continue its membership, but many other organisations vie to have a high rating from it. That leads to behaviour and conditions in which it can be very intimidating for individuals who do not agree with the view taken. This is what this issue is really about and why it is so important. I hope the Minister will be very forthright in response.
4.45 pm