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Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill

I sigh with exasperation but, personally, I find any form of discrimination morally reprehensible. I shall not endorse the policy. My party, of all parties, needs to recruit more women to its ranks so that they can be elected. Discrimination in any shape or form is abhorrent and repugnant. Finally, if we reach the new clauses tabled by the hon. Member for Foyle they will appear rather hollow, given his mention of the support given—disgracefully, in my view—by the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission to 50:50 recruitment. If any human rights organisation can sustain legalised religious discrimination, that undermines the confidence, particularly of the Unionist and Protestant community, in anything that it undertakes. It ill becomes the hon. Gentleman to move a new clause later to increase the powers of the Human Rights Commission, when he has just endorsed religious discrimination. I cannot countenance that.