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Equality Bill

My Lords, the amendment would change the current wording of the provisions in Clause 158(4)(a) from "as qualified as" to "equally qualified to". The amendment was discussed in Committee and in the other place, and, as previously pointed out, while the suggested change in the wording seems very similar to the current wording in the clause, we consider that amending the wording from "as qualified as" to "equally qualified to" may have unintended consequences. If the requirement was for job candidates to be "equally qualified to" be recruited or promoted, the employer might interpret this as requiring the candidates to have equal academic qualifications or other formal qualifications of a similar nature. However, when we refer to a candidate being qualified for a job, this is not a direct reference to any form of formal qualifications: rather, it is about ensuring that candidates must demonstrate that they meet the employer’s particular requirements for the specific post in question. They are qualified to do the job according to whatever criteria the employer has identified as being appropriate for that job. Any assessment of candidates’ suitability will depend on a number of factors relevant to the job in question, such as experience, aptitude, physical ability and performance during an interview or assessment. Formal qualifications are only one way in which a candidate’s overall suitability may be assessed and there may be many jobs where there is no need for any sort of formal qualification whatever. How an employer assesses whether an applicant is qualified to undertake a specific job would be up to the individual employer to determine. We are not attempting to interfere with how employers establish who is the most suitable person to work for them. Any amendment that may make employers focus solely on academic or formal qualifications would be misleading and could cause employers to be reluctant to use those provisions unless they have a situation in which candidates have identical qualifications. The proposed amendment could therefore limit the scope for delivering real equality outcomes for women, people from ethnic minority communities and disabled people, for example, who still experience disadvantage and under-representation in the labour market. During debates here and in the other place, there were some concerns that employers might set artificially low thresholds for determining suitability for a job in order to be able to claim that a candidate was qualified to do the job although better candidates were identified. We do not consider that these provisions could be misused in that way. Most criteria that an employer uses to establish the best candidate for a particular role within the organisation will establish whether one candidate is better qualified in terms of their ability, competence or experience. We have always been very clear on this matter: where there is a superior candidate then he or she should be offered the job. For example, where the assessment process, in whatever form it takes, evaluates one candidate as having scored, say, 95 per cent and another, say, 61 per cent, those candidates cannot be considered as being as qualified as each other to undertake the job. It is immaterial whether the pass mark was set at 60 per cent, 50 per cent or 40 per cent; the clearly superior candidate must always be offered the job. We are confident that the clause as currently drafted achieves that effect. It is for those reasons that I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.