Equality Bill [HL]

Like the noble Lord, Lord Lester, I support the intention behind the amendment. Before I turn to the specifics of amendments, I apologise to the Committee for not having been present at Second Reading. My noble friend Lady Massey kindly emphasised my concerns at Second Reading. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, for having raised the issue at Second Reading. The elimination of unlawful discrimination in goods, facilities and services is not only a technical tidying-up of the equality laws. As she said, there is evidence of discrimination in a range of services in both the public and private sectors. There are still examples of gay men and women being refused double beds in hotels. There are examples of women being refused smear tests because of their sexuality. When I read Hansard, I was encouraged to see how much support there was in the House for extending those protections to cover sexual orientation with immediate effect. I am sure that the amendment is designed to tease out from the Government what they will seek to do in terms of rectifying this mischief. As the Minister knows, I have tabled a series of amendments—Amendments Nos. 212B to 212U—to give effect to what Amendment No. 79 seeks to achieve in terms of sexual orientation. I should say to the Minister that this is a serious and pressing issue in which there is no financial cost to Her Majesty’s Treasury, merely a compelling and pressing need. I will come back to the issue in more detail when I speak to my amendments later. However, I give her notice and fair warning that I take the issue very seriously. If the protections are to be given to other vulnerable groups in the Bill, I shall press very hard for them to be given at the same time to gay men and women. I wholeheartedly support the intention of the amendment and await with some interest the reply from the Front Bench.