My Lords, one of the privileges I had when I served as Attorney-General was to be able to see government proposals, to consider them, to see where they were compatible with our obligations and sometimes to use incompatibility as grounds for persuading Ministers not to go down a particular path.
In considering this amendment, it is important to understand what is meant by underpinning because it risks concealing the important proposition that there are certain things that the Government simply cannot do at the moment—nor can other Governments who are members of the EU—because of the commitments that have been made. A directive has to be complied with. We cannot override it overnight. In these circumstances, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, is right to raise this hugely important point: what will be the underpinning in the future?
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The other thing that I learned was about the techniques to which he referred. For example—and I have made this point before in the House—the obligation of a Minister to give a certificate or statement of compatibility is enormously powerful. Those are the techniques. At bottom, the proposition put forward is a very modest proposal, which is that there should be no backsliding on the existing obligations as to equality. It is not adding something new; it is putting in place a mechanism that will provide the same constraints as exist at the moment, but they will be British constraints. There can be no complaints that they are coming from overseas or from foreigners.
It is not a difficult thing to understand why this is a modest proposal. There are good techniques being proposed to deal with it. It may be that the Minister or his officials can come up with better techniques for doing it, but at the end of the debate—perhaps at the end of today—the question is simply this: what are the Government going to do to ensure that these protections remain? Are warm assurances enough? I do not believe that they are. Having been in government for a number of years, I know that there are good intentions, but I also know that, without constraints of some sort, those good intentions can disappear.
Therefore, let taking back control not be a licence for backsliding on equality. Let it not be an encouragement to unfairness. Nothing for many of our fellow citizens is more damaging or outrageous than inequality or unfairness. We all feel that all the time, so I ask the Minister to answer the question: what are the Government going to do to make sure that equality is not diminished?