Equality Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am not a philosopher, but I wonder whether the noble Lord will reflect on two points. First, it is well established in human rights law that positive discrimination is entirely compatible with the human rights agenda. It is not in conflict with it, but is part of it. Secondly, he talks about our existing law as protecting groups of persons. Will he reconsider that? It does not protect groups, but individuals when they belong to groups and suffer disparate impact because they do so. Does he not agree that it would be entirely regressive for us to have a statute that protected tribes, herds, scheduled castes or anything of that kind?