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Equality Bill

I echo the welcome that has been given to the Bill. It is a good Bill, and it is good that it will get through before Dissolution. There was room for improvement, and some has been achieved via the House of Lords. The inclusion of caste is welcome, and on other matters the Government have given the assurances and the clarification that were sought in Committee and elsewhere. On employment, we certainly want employers to get the best person for the job, but I welcome the restrictions on what they can ask before people are appointed. I am happy to agree with the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) that many measures are not as strong as they could have been, and I agree that the Bill could have been stronger on many issues. It could have done with a purpose clause, as we said in Committee, and with guidance on how the courts are to deal with conflicts between different protected characteristics. As we also said in Committee, there is some concern among religious schools that when there is a conflict between two different protected characteristics, religion comes last. I accept that in Committee the Solicitor-General gave an assurance that that was not the Government's intention, but it would have been good to say so in the Bill. On a personal note, I welcome Lords amendments 93 to 95, and in particular amendment 95, the subject of which has been debated at length in Committee and on the Floor of the House. The wider religious public felt that the Bill represented a tightening of the previous legislation, whatever the Government might have said, and it would have incorporated positions that the Government had not intended to include. Youth workers were originally mentioned in the explanatory notes, and some did not realise that such workers are in many ways junior ministers, or junior priests, who lead young people spiritually in just the same way as ministers, priests and pastors. Within church and religious organisations, belief and practice are seen as important and tied together, and to say, "Such and such behaviour has nothing to do with the job," shows a lack of understanding about what religious people think. It was disappointing that the Government did not give ground on those issues before, but I welcome their acceptance of the idea now. That leaves in the air the relationship between the Church and the state, but that question is somewhat wider than our debate about the Bill. However, the state must be wary of becoming too involved in religious groups and how religious organisations operate. The danger is that many law-abiding citizens may be unnecessarily antagonised, and we do not want to go there. However, I welcome the Bill as a whole, and the amendments.