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Equality Bill [HL]

My Lords, I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, that I very much enjoyed the way in which she put the last amendment, and if anything was likely to seduce me to change my mind that was probably it. The reason it does not is really the reason given by the noble Lord, Lord Lester. We have the issue that in fact disbelief is dissimilar from belief. The lack of belief and belief is included in this. The purity of the drafting means that we get ourselves in more trouble by trying to see them as the same. It was for that reason that we thought it was better left out. The noble Baroness will know that initially we had thought that maybe ““similar”” would be apt, but on mature reflection we considered that it was actually better left out. I know that the noble Baroness does not necessarily take that view, but I know that the noble Baroness who sits behind me would take a strong view if I were to say that her humanism is similar to the noble Baroness opposite’s belief. It is for those reasons that we feel that we cannot include it. I hope that the noble Baroness if not content might at least accept the current position in which we now find ourselves.