Equality Bill [Lords]

No, I will not. Clause 10 emphasises in law the priority of ensuring good community relations and highlights race and faith in particular. The CRE will remain in existence until 2009. This will enable it to play a full role in discussions about how the commission works. The passing of the Bill does not determine how the commission will run, but it is the start of a new conversation and process in which black and minority ethnic communities will be fully involved. We are committed to an orderly transfer of the race agenda, and, in co-operation with the Home Office, we will immediately initiate a work stream that will directly involve members of the black and minority ethnic community and others, in exploring how, for example, the race equality and good relations functions of the new commission could be framed, including its important focus on race and faith communities. In this way, we will strive to make sure that race and faith communities have full confidence in the new commission and that the commission’s governance structures and strategic plan are designed in a way that reflects their concerns. Part 2 of the Bill introduces a new protection against discrimination in the provision of goods, facilities and services and in other areas on the grounds of religion or belief. After concerns were expressed during the Bill’s passage, we brought in additional powers to extend that to sexual orientation. We will issue a consultation document on that shortly and plan to exercise the power by October, at the same time as on religion and belief. Going forward, we are committed to tackling similar discrimination in other areas, including on the grounds of age and transgender. Those issues will be tackled as part of the discrimination law review, which will lead to a single equality Bill in the life of this Parliament and will simplify 30 years of equality legislation, ironing out many of the anomalies that we know exist. We will issue a Green Paper on the review’s findings before the summer, which will ensure that we can also give full consideration to emerging findings from Trevor Phillips’s review into the fundamental causes of inequality. The fourth part of the Bill places a duty on public authorities to promote equality of opportunity between men and women. We are currently completing consultation on that and hope to bring forward regulations in April next year. The Bill is about replacing privilege with opportunity, discrimination with equality, and fear with serenity. Those are noble ambitions, which I know Members on both sides of the House support. I commend the Bill to the House.