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Equality Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 169:"Page 44, line 17, leave out from ““a”” to end of line 19 and insert ““body entered in the Scottish Charity Register””" The noble Baroness said: My Lords, Amendment No. 169 will bring up to date the definition of a charity in Scotland for the purposes of Part 2. In doing so, I pay tribute again to the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy of Lour, and the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, who tabled a similar amendment in Committee. We were unable to accept that amendment, but I trust that this amendment has the effect that they intended. The effect of our amendment is that all charities operating in Scotland that are entered on the Scottish charity register will be regarded as charities for the purpose of Part 2. That differs slightly from the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness and the noble Duke in Committee, in that the specific term ““Scottish charity””, which was used in that amendment, is defined more narrowly in the 2005 Act and covers only charities established under the law of Scotland or managed or controlled wholly or mainly in or from Scotland, whereas the more general term ““charity”” is defined in the 2005 Act as any body entered in the Scottish charity register. We believe that it is right to cover the wider range of charities operating in Scotland. Amendment No. 190 is a technical amendment to extend to the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator—the OSCR—the exemption already given to the Charity Commissioners in England and Wales. The OSCR was set up very recently through the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005. The exemption allows those bodies to discriminate on grounds of sex when exercising their functions in relation to charities, which, because of an exemption in Section 43 of the Sex Discrimination Act, can also discriminate on grounds of sex. It thus creates consistency across Great Britain. I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy, and the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose. I have given such a long explanation because I am confident that they will read it, and hope that all the questions that they would have asked me have therein been answered. I beg to move.