Equality Bill [HL]

I am grateful to Members of the Committee who have spoken. I take   seriously what my noble friend Lord Alli and other Members of the Committee said about the importance of the amendment and the recognition of the need to address the issue. As he said, there was a great deal of recognition at Second Reading that the law in the area is far from perfect, to put it mildly. As Members of the Committee said, one key area of concern is that the law does not provide protection against discrimination on the grounds of age, sexual orientation or gender reassignment in the provision of goods, facilities and services. In many other points—some technical, some more substantive—there is a strong case for reforming and extending our current anti-discrimination framework. One job of government is to make sure that we look at those areas carefully and get them right, but I am persuaded that the principle that everyone should receive appropriate and effective protection from discrimination in the provision of goods, facilities, services and, indeed, public functions is the right one. The Committee will know that we announced, as my noble friend indicated, our intention to review discrimination law and look in detail at the best ways to address the current gaps and difficulties. That work is under way. A proper investigation of how the law should be shaped, particularly in important areas such as providing protection from discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation in the provision of goods, facilities and services is a key area for the discrimination law review. The review is intended to give us proposals that will give a fairer, simpler and more effective framework, and will enable the Government to deliver our manifesto commitment to introduce a single equality Act in the lifetime of this Parliament. As I have set out, we are taking steps to address the problem. But the new commission can carry out enforcement work only with the legal framework of discrimination and human rights law that exists at any point in time, which was the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lester. So while the commission can work towards eliminating unlawful discrimination only in areas where such discrimination is indeed unlawful, there is no reason why the commission cannot promote good practice in areas where discrimination of this sort is not yet unlawful. I hope that noble Lords will feel that that is an important part of what the commission should be doing. I recognise the seriousness with which this issue has   been raised and I undertake to have further conversations and dialogues with our noble friends in particular who have raised this as an important aspect of the Bill. I shall also seek over the coming weeks to ensure that we are able to give more detail about the way in which we will be taking this forward. I say to my noble friends simply this—there is an   open door; there is no question but that this Government and this Minister wish to do this. We are simply discussing when and how to make sure we do it properly. What I will not do is to find ourselves in a position where we do not do it well enough. That will be really important in our discussions too. On the basis that I take it very seriously, that I recognise that this is an area that we need to address, that we need to give not only reassurance but commitment as to how we will do that, I hope that my noble friend will at this stage feel able to withdraw the amendment.