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Equality Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 76:"Page 17, line 39, leave out from ““while”” to ““but”” and insert ““they relate to a provision of the equality enactments,””" The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 76, I shall speak also to government Amendments Nos. 77 to 81. Although there are several amendments, their effect is minor. This is in response to the 16th report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. Clause 30(5)(b) provides that the commission may only support cases for as long as a provision of the equality enactments remains in issue. However, Clause 30(6) provides a power by which the Lord Chancellor may make an order disapplying subsection (5)(b) in respect of cases which have ceased to relate to the equality enactments but which continue to relate to the Human Rights Act 1998. Such an order would, as I explained in Committee, be made in respect of all cases or a class of case rather than on an individual case-by-case basis. In its 16th report in the last Session, the Joint Committee on Human Rights rightly raised a technical point on the drafting. At the moment, the power only covers cases which relied on both the equality enactments and Section 7(1) of the Human Rights Act 1998 from the outset. We accept the recommendation of the Joint Committee that this is unnecessarily restrictive as it would prevent the continued support of cases in which a matter relating to the convention rights within the meaning of the Human Rights Act had arisen in the course of the case. An example would be where a point was raised by the court of its own motion during the course of oral argument. The amendment therefore removes this unintended restriction. It will be sufficient that the case has ceased to relate to a provision of the equality enactments but does relate wholly or partly to any of the convention rights, regardless of when exactly the convention point was first raised. It is a matter of detail, as I have indicated. Unless the order-making power is exercised, it will not affect the case support function of the commission and its effect even then would be felt only in very occasional cases. It is, however, a worthwhile change to be made, as the Joint Committee identified. We have also taken the opportunity to simplify the drafting of the clause somewhat by standardising the wording used in different subsections. I beg to move.