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Equality Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 19:"Page 57, line 5, leave out ““may”” and insert ““shall””" The noble Baroness said: Amendment No. 19 is a probing amendment for Amendment No. 20, which seeks to ensure that decision-making committees specialising in gender and race relations will be established by the commission and shall include persons with knowledge of these areas. In the Second Reading debate I indicated that I had not originally been in favour of an overarching commission responsible for all kinds of discrimination. This was based on my experience as an EOC member. But I realise that since I was a member attitudes have tended to change and there now seems a general consensus on the idea of an all-embracing CEHR. Nevertheless, both the EOC and the CRE did a great deal of very good work. In so doing, they built up a formidable amount of expertise in their own particular areas of operation. I see from a briefing that I have from the Mayor of London that he seems to agree with me. He states in his briefing:"““All equality areas are unique, facing different challenges and threats””." He also pointed out that Part 5 of Schedule 1 establishes a disability committee. Of course, the amendments we debated earlier today—particularly Amendment No. 55—sought to deal with other equality strands in a rather more complicated way than is suggested in my amendment, which attempts to deal with the criticism and to build on the experience which is already available from the former commissions. Of course it does not go as far as the mayor’s briefing. It reflects what was outlined in Amendment No. 55 but does not spell out in detail any requirements with regard to establishment. It indicates ways in which the work already done on gender and race might be utilised and built upon for the future. My noble friend will undoubtedly say that the commission will obviously have the right to establish such committees as it thinks it ought to have in order to do its work, but the work that has already been done on gender and race is so important that it should be written onto the face of the Bill so that the commission starts off with a requirement to make use of that experience, and to do so by way of the establishment of these committees. I beg to move.