Equality Bill [HL]

My Lords, I cannot resist telling your Lordships that the other day I went to have tea in the Dining Room and took with me a copy of the Equality Bill. One noble Lord, who seemed to have a rather jaundiced sense of humour, said how odd it was to see an earl taking an interest in equality. I thought that there was equality in misery and therefore I had better find out about it. So I did. It is always fun and such a pleasure to congratulate the Government—especially the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, who is not in his place at the moment—on getting something right and on doing the right thing. I always love doing that. The trouble is that there are so few occasions on which it is possible to do so. I may be an odd ball in the debate so far, but I have found little cause to congratulate the Government on the Bill and its contents. Of course one understands the reasons and the purposes behind the Bill, but one wonders whether there are no limits to the ingenuity of government and civil servants to conjure up things on which to legislate. I just wish that the Government would sometimes understand that people do not want more legislation; they want less. By its very nature, legislation means, ““You must not do””, and it usually means, ““And we will set up bodies to ensure that you will not do that which you would otherwise have done””. Intrinsically, therefore, I do not warm to the Bill, despite the noble and learned Lord’s enthusiastic introduction of it, when he made out that it was a wonderful, humane and socially desirable Bill. Of course, no one approves of persecution or offensiveness, but I warm to the Bill even less when it proposes to amalgamate three bodies—the Equal Opportunities Commission, the Commission for Racial Equality and the Disability Rights Commission—that together have a budget of £48 million and will be replaced by a new body—the Commission for Equality and Human Rights—that will have a budget of £70 million. I would have expected amalgamation to have resulted in savings but not so in government departments—there is double the cost. Money apparently means nothing to the Government. ““Ah””, the Government will say, ““the body is taking on new powers over religion, sexual orientation and age, and that means more cost””. However, I question whether we really want some new monster body to take on powers over those areas of our lives. What will the new body do? One need only look at Clause 3, to which my noble friend Lady Miller referred, and with which the right reverend Prelate, much to my surprise, found that he was so much in agreement. Clause 3 says that the commission will have a ““fundamental duty””. It states:"““The Commission shall exercise its functions  . . . with a view to the creation of a society””" in which there will be various things, including respect for, among other things,"““the dignity and worth of each individual””." That will be written down in law. How can a court or a judge decide the dignity or worth of an individual? That may be fine in a sixth-form essay, where some bright-eyed youth is trying to display the enormity of his intellect, but not as part of the law of the country, if a person could find himself in a court of law. What is this ““fundamental duty””? Such an expression has never appeared in British law before, but it has all the echoes of the totalitarian regimes of Russia and China. Do we want a great big quango to create a society? That is a huge power. We individuals are to be moulded like dough into a shape that some commission wants. Even if the underlying sentiments of the Bill were worthy—I do not think that they are—the creation of a public body whose duty is to mould our society and therefore our people in a way that that body wants is a monstrous power. The Government may say that people need to be pulled up a bit sharp if they are conducting themselves contrary to the best interests of society. That may be so, but who will be the members of this commission? It will not be the Archangel Gabriel and his merry men. It will doubtless be people who have applied to some other body and who will be entered on a list and subsequently picked or more likely just approved by some Minister. As the commission must be fully conversant with those bodies that feel themselves repressed and inadequately treated in the race of life, doubtless it will have to include a number of those representatives. Of course, they will all be paid. This is sinister stuff. Your Lordships may well recall the fear that we all had in the 1950s of communism—the fear that Big Brother was watching you. So he was, watching over and ordering the lives of those in Russia. We fought intellectually, philosophically and politically against that ever happening in this country. but that is exactly what is happening in this country. We do not call it communism. It masquerades under the name of democracy. A member of the Rural Payments Agency, for example, can deny a farmer subsidy because the official may find that a heavy piece of machinery in a field is destroying the soil structure, as if the official knows more about the soil structure than does the farmer. A hospital such as the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children can be obliged to close its wards because it has done too many operations and has exceeded the Government’s target. If you go into central London, a satellite in the sky will home in on your vehicle and, if you have not paid your congestion charge, you are for it. Now the Secretary of State for Education and Skills wants children to stay at school until late in the evening, thereby allowing the state to take over from parents the duty, pleasure and right of bringing up their children in their way. So it goes on: the examples are endless. Big Brother is watching us all the time. However reasonable an argument may be in any particular case, in every way the individual is made more and more to subordinate himself or herself to the state. Now we have this proposed new commission being given huge powers. It will be able to do anything that it likes to pursue its anti-discrimination legislation. There is no complaints procedure. There will be no ombudsman to control it, and it will be virtually immune from judicial review. The commission has a duty to create mutual respect between communities. One may be able to tolerate the views of others, but saying that you have to respect them puts it all into a different category altogether. Christians, for example, may not like Satanists in their community. They may be able to tolerate them, but that does not mean to say that they will respect them. To be told by law that they must respect them is as impossible as it is deeply offensive. Then of course the commission will have huge powers to back legal action by a supposedly oppressed person. That may seem fine in principle, but it can have a devastating and undermining effect on justice. If, for example, an atheist were to stay in a hotel and found a copy of the Bible by his bed, he could complain to the commission that the hotel was discriminating against him and his views. Were such a complaint to be backed by the commission, it would cost the complainant nothing, but it would be hugely expensive for the hotel to resist in court. The simplest answer for the hotel would be to say, ““Let us remove the Bible from the rooms and have no fuss””. Where is the justice there? Far from there being no justice, there is a substantial injustice. Action is being taken against something that is perfectly legal, and the action is backed by the heavy weight of public finance. That will result in free and legal behaviour being threatened or expunged. Barnabas House is a refuge for young people and was set up in King’s Lynn in my county of Norfolk by the Baptist Church. It was told that it stood to lose its funding from Norfolk County Council because grace was said before meals and Bibles were placed in the rooms. All advertising for Christian events was inappropriate. The hostel was set up by a church. Why should it not conduct itself in the way that it wishes? Who is to say that such people should not conduct themselves in the way that they wish and that the grant will be removed? Local officials. Of what organisation? Believe it or not, they were from the government body that runs under that dreadful wacky name of ““supporting people””. There was not much supporting of people there. There was a compromise. The hostel could keep its grant if it kept the religion ““low key””. What does that mean? How do you keep a religion ““low key””? The hostel can keep its Bibles, but people must not say grace before meals. That is what is imposed on people by officials. Last month, there was a row because an education authority wanted to ban the mention of the Holy Ghost because it was considered to be spooky. That is an intolerable interference by authority, whether local or national. Officials have no right to dictate, using the bludgeon of money to get their way, and individuals have no right to be trodden over in that   way. That is what is happening before this new monster body, with its new monster powers of having a fundamental duty to create the type of society that it wants, comes into effect. It is no wonder that people are deeply apprehensive of the Bill. The Government ought to encourage—and ought to encourage their officials to encourage—organisations that help, guide and rescue people. Money—government money—is a powerful weapon. The Government should see that it is handled with care and understanding, not dictatorially. Which department is to be responsible for the Bill? It will be not one body, not two, not three, but four—the DTI, the Department for Constitutional Affairs, the Home Office and the Department for Work and Pensions. Where is the commonality of thought there? Far from creating a human, contented and equal society, the Bill will produce a society in which there is antagonism, aggression and fear. Of course, that it is not its intention, but I think that that will be result. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said that   the Government wanted to build a truly equal society, but equality can produce drabness, uniformity, dullness and lack of enterprise. I remind your Lordships of what the late Lord Hailsham said so well in his book The Dilemma of Democracy:"““in a democracy in which uniformity is not the aim, and diversity is encouraged, each man and woman is free to join a restricted group in which he can excel and offer service. Such groups are not class conscious examples of social or intellectual or aesthetic snobbery. They are the salt of the earth. They are the church workers, the youth leaders, the club secretaries, the trade union officials, the welfare officers, the pigeon fanciers, the Scouters, the allotment holders, the members of residents’ associations, the Salvation Army Captains, the exponents of almost every free activity you choose to mention, that is except the things which mean drabness, boredom, cynicism, non-involvement in society, and mediocrity in all things””."