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Equality Bill

There is a fundamental problem. It is absolutely right that religious organisations should have the exemption for jobs that the Government tried to set out clearly in paragraph 2(8) of schedule 9, which Lords amendment 95 removes. The Government amended the original poorly framed provision to make it even clearer, and it stated that the right to discriminate should be restricted essentially to priests and people who directly teach scripture. Youth workers, however, do not do that, and it is wrong to destroy the career of someone who has devoted their life to helping children purely on the basis of their sexual orientation when that has nothing to do with the delivery of their job. It is unfortunate that the Government are facing infraction proceedings even on the existing measure, after we removed their attempt, as they put it, to clarify. The Government are right and the Conservatives are wrong about this being a sufficient narrowing of the exemption. That is why we opposed it. We thought the exemption should have been narrowed somewhat. The fact that the Government ended up being defeated on a measure that did not achieve what it should have achieved shows that this part of the Bill has been badly handled. At this stage of the Parliament and at this hour, it is inappropriate to seek to divide the House on these matters, but I hope it is clear that the Liberal Democrats believe that although this is a good Bill, and that many of the measures in it are welcome, it could have gone much further in achieving the equality that many of us say we want to see, and which many of us believe is needed.