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Equality Bill [HL]

Stakeholders in Scotland and Wales have been very strong advocates of the commission. We have developed good open relationships with them, which I am delighted about. They have been extremely helpful. In Clause 14 there are a raft of promotional powers, which give the committees that we are setting up—and I shall talk about the membership of the committees later—the freedom to decide their own work programmes with regard to campaigning, identifying research, guidance and advice and providing education and training, or contracting other people to undertake any of those actions in so far as they affect the people in Scotland or Wales. The committees will also be able to monitor devolved legislation and provide advice to the devolved governments on the effect of the legislation. That is an important part of their work. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, for having read the ““Easyread”” guide, which I hope noble Lords will see filtering in over the next little while. It is a good example of government doing something important. I am very proud of it and commend the officials who produced it for us. The noble Lord raised the point about the way in which the committees will work. The Scottish and Welsh commissioners will chair the committees and sit on the main board, but the committees will be made up of other people brought together in Scotland or Wales to take on the work that needs to be undertaken. So they will not be part of the 15 commissioners; they will be separate. What I do not have is the detail about the numbers of the committees, but I shall expand on the subject for the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, and my noble friend Lady Gale, so I can say a little more about precisely how it will work. With regard to funding, the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, will know from what I have said already that we do not want to hamper the commission by going into too much detail on funding. We want to ensure that we have given it a budget, which is a 40 per cent increase on the combined budgets of the three commissions as they currently stand. But the detail of how those budgets are to be spent will be part of the strategic plan and part of how the commission does its work.