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Equality Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am sympathetic to the purpose behind the amendments, although I cannot accept their form. The particular exemption to which the right reverend Prelate made reference has been the subject of a lot of debate during the passage of the Bill. I believe that we all agree that no schools should be able to harass people in the sense in which that word bears its ordinary plain, English meaning. That is why we removed the blanket exemption in this clause in Committee and replaced it with a much more limited, current exemption. However, as we equally made clear in Committee, we also need to preserve in the Bill faith schools’ ability to function as they do now, without having to divert resources to deal with claims of harassment that are not well founded. Such claims could arise, without the limited exemption, simply because of the way in which the definition of harassment works in the Bill, and not only in response to conduct that we should all recognise as harassment in its ordinary plain, English sense and would all rightly condemn. For example, a claim might be made on the basis that the school simply had a religious ethos, as the right reverend Prelate said, and manifested it in some ways that people found offensive. We need to strike the right balance to protect pupils from harassment, and faith schools from undue interference with their legitimate and proper operation. I had thought that, following earlier debate, this had been achieved, but this proposed amendment gives us a further opportunity to bring cohesion to the Bill, since government amendments have been tabled today for similar clauses in respect of goods, facilities and services, which adopt different wording again from any tabled earlier in the passage of this Bill. It would now therefore seem a good time to consider whether greater clarity across the piece might be gained by looking at whether that wording might be drawn on in this particular clause, with a view to achieving some consistency, while of course maintaining the spirit and intention behind the exemption as it stands at present. With that explanation I invite the right reverend Prelate not to press his amendment. I propose that we look again at this clause and give it further consideration at Third Reading.