Equality Bill [Lords]

If an organisation is not working or if it can be improved, let us improve it. I have my own story about the CRE. When I first came to Britain, my mother went to the CRE to ask for help in a discrimination case that she had. She was then, I think, the only person of Asian origin teaching in the London borough of Richmond and we could not understand why she could never obtain promotion. We went to the CRE—I think I was about 11—and asked it for help. Although it did not help my mother, it did not put me off the concept of the need for an organisation that provides help. A lot of other organisations have claims of racial discrimination made against them, and I concede the point that we need a new organisation provided that it makes for better representation. The representation point is of paramount consideration for the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrat party, which is always banging on about representation. I have just heard a speech from the president of the Liberal Democrats, and I name him even though I have not given him notice that I would. I have just rushed out of the speech to take part in the debate, but his speech was all about representation. With Muslim people sitting in front of him, he called for more Muslim Members of Parliament from the Liberal Democrat party. Such words are cheap if one goes on to a platform to say that we want more and then one takes away the very mechanism by which we get more.