Equality Bill [Lords]

As the hon. Lady well knows, Ministers come to the House each year to explain their budget commitments and how the budgets are spent. I assume that this will be part of our normal accountability to Parliament. The business community was mentioned by both the hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs. Miller). Representatives of the CBI and the Small Business Council participated in the CEHR taskforce, helped to draw up the White Paper and advised on consultation responses, and are represented on the CEHR steering group, which is advising on the establishment of the new commission. In fact, business wants a single equalities body: it wants all advice and guidance on all areas of discrimination and human rights law to be in one place. I hope that that gives some comfort to those who fear that businesses feel that they are being over-regulated. They are actually being very supported. The hon. Members for Romsey (Sandra Gidley) and for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow), my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Redcar and, again, the hon. Member for Basingstoke mentioned age discrimination. It is clearly wrong at both ends of the spectrum—and the House should recognise that it happens to younger as well as older people. Developing ways to tackle age discrimination in an effective, properly targeted manner is, however, complicated and that is why we have asked the discrimination law review team to examine ways in which we can solve some of the major issues. It is fair to say that Age Concern, Help the Aged and other organisations representing older people support that approach, rather than putting measures into the Bill and perhaps not getting it right at this time. I wanted to deal with the issue of children. Of course children are people and they will be covered by the CEHR. As the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Hywel Williams) highlighted, there will be memorandums of understanding with the commissioners in both Wales and Scotland. It is important that we recognise the nuances of devolution in relation to that element.