Equality Bill [Lords]

Plaid Cymru and the Scottish national party welcome the Bill with some reservations, but we have been great supporters of the provisions on race. As some hon. Members know, my predecessor was a great supporter of disability legislation. We are equally enthusiastic about the provisions on religion, sexual orientation and particularly age. In that regard I have in mind the Bill going through another place to establish a commissioner for older people in Wales. I hope that we in Wales have a progressive record on such matters. We welcome the intention to address equality issues in an integrated way, bringing in uniformity and equality and, as the hon. and learned Member for Redcar (Vera Baird) said, evening up standards and seeking equality of provision. Equality law is contained in many Acts. The Stonewall brief for this debate notes that there are equality issues in 35 Acts, 52 statutory instruments, 13 codes of practice and 16 EU directives. Sooner, I hope, rather than later, we will move to a single equality Act in respect of the matters addressed in the Bill. For that reason we welcome the advent of the equality review and hope it will quickly lead to legislation. As I said, we have at least four particular concerns—first, the nature of the Welsh and Scottish bodies to be set up by the commission; secondly, the reporting and accountability of those Welsh and Scottish committees to the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament; thirdly, the arrangements in respect of the commissioners working in Wales for children and for older people, and the relationship between them and the commission; and, fourthly, particularly in the case of Wales and perhaps also Scotland, matters relating to indigenous languages—in my case, the Welsh language. The commission will set up a Welsh committee. We welcome the fact that it will be a decision-making committee. As schedule 1 notes, it will have real power, and I hope it will also have the money to make that power work for it. It will advise the National Assembly for Wales and report to the Assembly, and similarly in Scotland. The commission member for Wales will be appointed with the consent of the National Assembly for Wales, and the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry will have to consult the National Assembly for Wales on some of the codes of practice. All these provisions are to be welcomed. I refer the Minister to paragraphs 30(1)(a) and 30(2)(a) of schedule 1, relating to advice to the devolved Governments as regards enactments and changes in law that affect Wales only. There are similar provisions affecting Scotland only. I point out that the legislative position in Wales is not the same as it is in Scotland—at present at least. Will the Minister tell me in what circumstances the advisory functions would be carried out in Wales for matters that affect Wales only? How will the children’s commissioners in England, Scotland and, in particular, Wales compliment the work of the new commission and the new commissioner in Wales? I understand that the Government want to agree memorandums of understanding to ensure joined-up working. When will those memorandums of understanding be agreed and what priority will be given to them? In Wales, will the memoranda of understanding be drawn up with the Wales committee of the new commission or with the commission itself? Such detailed matters will be discussed in Committee or on Report, I presume.