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Equality Bill

I think it makes it very much clearer, which is very important, especially for legislation that simply will not work unless it is accessible, comprehensible and understood by everybody who wants to be protected by it. Amendments 90 and 108 on gender reassignment would amend schedules 3 and 24 to make it clear that it is not unlawful discrimination for a minister of religion to refuse to solemnise the marriage of a person if he or she reasonably believes the person has undergone gender reassignment. These amendments take account of the different arrangements governing marriages in the Church of England and the Church in Wales, where ministers are required to marry qualifying couples, the corresponding arrangements in Scotland and the different arrangements applying to marriages in registered buildings and other religious marriages. That preserves the existing provision under the Marriage Act 1949, which might otherwise have been in doubt given the Bill's extension of protection from gender reassignment discrimination to the exercise of public functions. That is a very specific provision. Let me turn briefly to broadcasting. Amendments 91 and 109 amend schedules 3 and 24, in response to broadcasters' concerns, simply to make it clear that nothing in the Bill is intended to undermine their editorial independence. The amendments put it beyond doubt that the services and public functions provisions do not apply to broadcasting and distribution of content services.