---

Equality Bill

Does the noble Lord agree that he and I are talking at cross purposes about two quite different situations? I was speaking, as I should have thought was clear, and on what I thought was the matter being attended to, of organisations, either church organisations or of religious ethos, which find themselves contracted to undertake service on behalf of the Government and receive payment for doing so. The noble Lord is speaking of the transfer of organisations from the public service into the employment of a religious organisation. The points he is making have to be thought through. Some religious organisations might judge that to accept the kind of contract he is speaking of would so dilute their aims and objectives that they should not enter it in the first place. Some religious organisations which have agreed to such contracts have had their objectives so diluted that they have ceased to be what they were. But we were, I think, talking about two quite different situations.