Equality Bill [Lords]

At present, discrimination is tackled by £48 million a year and it is well done. I pay tribute to the three bodies that currently carry out the excellent work. They have worked hard to inform hon. Members about the issues that we are debating and they should be congratulated on their hard work on our proceedings, as should the bodies that represent the other strands of inequality that will come under the new commission for equality and human rights. The current work represents taxpayers’ money well spent but I am worried. I wager that, when we examine the new body’s accounts at the end of its first financial year, it will have cost more than the £70 million predicted by the Minister. I fear that the new body will cost more than twice as much as the current bodies. That is worrying because every pound spent on the commission is a pound of taxpayers’ money not spent on health, education or some other matter. It is our duty, as a House of Commons, to be the guardian of taxpayers’ money. Whatever we want to do and however good the intentions of the legislation that we wish to pass—I have said time and again that the Bill’s intention is good and we thoroughly support it—if it costs too much, is over-bureaucratic and puts too many burdens on business, thus costing more indirectly to the economy, it will undo some of its good work. It falls to me as Opposition spokesman to make this point because the Government will never make it: Labour Governments always spend more taxpayers’ money than they intend because they do not have the regard that they should for the economy.