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Health Bill

My Lords, about 40 years ago, I failed to persuade the Law Lords that working men’s clubs should be treated as public places for the purpose of colour bars. As a result of that, in the Race Relations Act 1976, the Government, which I served, decided to overrule the Law Lords and ensure that a colour bar was unlawful, whether in a private members’ club or otherwise. What I learnt from that experience is of some relevance today; it is the great difficulty in distinguishing between those clubs that are very private indeed—such as the Garrick Club, to which I used to belong—and clubs that are not very private but are still clubs in law, such as working men’s clubs. There are thousands of working men’s clubs and they are, in practice, but not in law, indistinguishable from pubs. If this amendment were passed, we can be quite sure that there would be a drift from pubs to working men’s clubs.