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Equality Bill

My Lords, I am not going to repeat the arguments for recognising the existence of caste discrimination here in Britain that were so thoroughly canvassed in Committee. I simply remind your Lordships that the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination found in 2002 that descent includes caste and called on member states of the parent convention, including the UK, to enact domestic legislation to combat such discrimination. When we discussed in Committee a number of different ways of bringing caste into the protected characteristics, my noble friend Lord Lester asked whether the Government were of the opinion that discrimination on the grounds of caste was capable of falling within the concept of race under the law as it stands. He said that if there were to be litigation, the courts would have regard to the fact that caste comes into the definition of racial discrimination under Article 1 of the convention. We understand that the Equality and Human Rights Commission took that view and therefore concluded initially that the legislation we proposed was unnecessary. But since there is no specific mention of caste in our law, it would be a chancy and expensive business for anybody to try this out in the courts. The EHRC has, I am pleased to say, now agreed to back a suitable case with legal advice and funding, and the Anti Caste Discrimination Alliance and others are actively trawling for an example which fits within the parameters of employment, education, and the provision of goods and services. The EHRC welcomes the amendment as enabling steps to be taken to prevent caste discrimination if the evidence demonstrates a necessity to do so. Meanwhile, the Government have commissioned further research building on the scoping study published by the ACDA last November to establish the extent of discrimination by caste here in Britain. We are convinced that it will put beyond doubt the necessity for exercising the power in the amendment. That makes sense, and we look forward to hearing from the Minister details as to who is being given the job of conducting the research and what its terms of reference and timing will be. After we considered bringing caste into the Bill in Committee, the Minister invited representatives of some 17 anti-caste organisations in the UK, representing several hundred thousand people, to give their point of view to her and her officials. I think that she will agree with me that this was a totally unprecedented gathering, at which all those organisations spoke with a single voice on the need to seize the opportunity presented by Bill for action against caste discrimination by treating caste as a subset of race. The Minister told us later that she was minded to accept an amendment along these lines. We were very grateful to her for listening for nearly two hours to those organisations in the Committee Room upstairs. The Leader of the House wrote last week to the chairman of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee saying that the Government were minded to accept the amendment and explaining how proposed subsection (6) might be needed to make exceptions for a provision such as in paragraph 2 of Schedule 2, which limits the definition of race in the public sector equality duty in Clause 148. The reference to "specified circumstances" is required to enable consideration to be given to single-characteristic associations, exempting those associations from the application of the discrimination provisions in Clause 101 but not in terms of colour. The note accompanying the letter to my noble friend Lord Goodhart also says that when the research shows that there is evidence of caste discrimination occurring in Great Britain, the Government will consider whether exercising the power in the amendment is a proportionate response to the problem. We are content to leave this problem to be resolved when the research becomes available and would ask only for an undertaking from the Minister that she will discuss it with the anti-discrimination organisations at the time, as she has done on this occasion. This is a textbook example of how democracy should work. At first, the Government were reluctant to put any reference to caste in the Bill, but they listened to the voices of those who were at the receiving end of caste discrimination, and so did the EHRC. There is now the hope that a test case will be taken through the courts under existing legislation. In parallel, the Government have commissioned the research that we believe will demonstrate the proportionality of adding caste to the Bill using these powers. These are important steps towards to ending caste discrimination, which is as pernicious as discrimination against persons having any of the protected characteristics already in the Bill. I beg to move.