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Miss Widdecombe: I am partly reassured by that, but only partly. I will give the Home Secretary some examples when we look at the way in which the indirect discrimination provisions, when they are included in the Bill, will work. If the operational effectiveness of the police service is to be threatened in any way, we must look minutely at these provisions and think about them carefully.
On investigations into the police by the Commission for Racial Equality, I am not convinced that the CRE is the right body to examine allegations of racism in the police service. Surely it would be more appropriate for a single body to look at all complaints against the police, such as a truly independent Police Complaints Authority. We would then avoid having the PCA look into the operational aspects of a complaint of racism while the CRE was looking at the racial aspects. I hope that the Secretary of State will look at that issue before the Bill is considered in Committee.
I now turn to the inclusion of the indirect discrimination provisions, which the Government intend to include by way of an amendment at a later stage, despite previously expressing their deep reservations about including provisions on such discrimination in the Bill. In another place, Lord Bassam commented that outlawing indirect discrimination would have uncertain and potentially far-reaching effects on the Government's ability to make policy. He went on to argue that there would be too many frequent and counter-productive court challenges, and that indirect discrimination did not fit well with law enforcement. Can the Minister who winds up the debate explain why the Government have made this U-turn in their attitude to indirect discrimination?
The Home Secretary said in a written answer, when he announced the new policy:
Mr. Straw:
The detailed points that the right hon. Lady raises can be answered by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State and in Committee. However, the House may be a little confused: the right hon. Lady says that she supports the principle of the Bill, but it is unclear which part of its contents she supports. I hope that she will not get herself into the position, which I forbore from mentioning, that her predecessor got into in 1965 and 1968 on a similar tack.
As to the right hon. Lady's examples--and I am very happy to provide her with all the information that I considered--the way in which the courts have interpreted section 1(1)(b) of the Race Relations Act 1976, which outlaws racial discrimination that is indirect only if it is unjustified, show that the courts have been very accommodating to the public authorities. I gave the example of the Manpower Services Commission and there is a stream of others. In one of the examples that she gave, it would have to be palpable that a senior police officer was organising the beats in order to be racially discriminatory, which I doubt. If he was doing it to ensure that the area was properly policed and that he was covering the areas of highest crime and highest complaint, there would not be the least argument.
My final point--and I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for allowing me to intervene--is that I have been perfectly open about the Government's anxieties about whether it was safe to incorporate section 1(1)(b). As a result of continuing discussion inside and outside Government, my colleagues and I were persuaded that it was safe to do so.
Miss Widdecombe:
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that response. He asked me about my support for the Bill. We have said that we support the principle, and that
Miss Widdecombe:
Let me finish, because the right hon. Gentleman asked me the question--which he should not have done in an intervention, anyway. We are concerned about the addition, at a late stage, of indirect discrimination provisions. The principle may be fine, but we know well that if we make bad law around noble principles, the consequences are nasty. We are trying to do our duty--to scrutinise the likely consequences and possible effects of this measure.
It is all very well for the right hon. Gentleman to brush aside what I have just said as if it were of no consequence. Why, then, did his Minister, in another place, make exactly these points and say that that was why the Government were not going to include indirect discrimination in the Bill?
Mr. Straw:
I was not brushing aside the right hon. Lady's comments as if they were of no consequence--I was giving her an answer.
The right hon. Lady will come to regret her assertion that one is not allowed to ask questions in interventions. I will bear that in mind the next time I have the Floor. Indeed, I will never let her forget it.
The right hon. Lady talks about it being fine to apply to the public sector that which already applies to the private sector. That was the killer argument in respect of indirect discrimination. Section 1(1)(b) already applies to the private sector. Therefore, it becomes very difficult--not impossible, because I tried it--to argue that it should not apply to the public sector as well.
Miss Widdecombe:
It is all right for the Opposition to ask questions of the Government in interventions. That is what we are supposed to do, because the Government have Executive responsibility. I again ask the Home Secretary the question that he has persistently refused to answer. I will even sit down and let him reply. Why, if this is so obvious and I am being so unreasonable, did his Government take exactly this line until very recently, with Lord Bassam enunciating the sort of arguments that I am making now?
Mr. Straw:
I have not, on this occasion, accused the right hon. Lady of being wholly unreasonable. There is no great secret about this. There was a process of discussion and debate about this in Government. The right hon. Lady knows the processes of Government, to some extent better than I do. At least I did not have to argue with my ministerial colleagues in the Home Office.
An initial view was formed about where the balance of argument lay, and that is obvious from the record. I do not think that we should be criticised for having listened to the arguments, not least to the debate in the other place. People cannot have it both ways. It was always a relatively finely balanced argument. Lord Bassam spelt out our anxieties, but I am pleased to say that the more I went into it, the more I could assuage colleagues about
where the balance of the argument lay. The point about the provisions already applying to the private sector was very important when it came to weighing that balance.
Miss Widdecombe:
I hope that we shall be able to test at length in Committee the concerns that the Government previously held but which they claim to have resolved in a very short time--indeed, a record time, even for a Government of many U-turns.
Mr. Simon Hughes:
On the basis that I, too, may ask questions, will the right hon. Lady reflect that while it may have taken the Government a little time to be persuaded by arguments about indirect discrimination--she may not yet be quite persuaded--the time taken has been rather longer in the context of European Union law? EU courts and member states have accepted that a law that did not outlaw indirect discrimination in the customs union would have made that union impossible. The argument has been won in other areas of law, as her party accepted when in Government, even if it has not yet quite been won in this area.
Miss Widdecombe:
It will be won only once we have given it thorough discussion and examination. The worries so recently entertained by the Government, which we still hold, must be resolved. A parliamentary process exists for doing so, and I hope that we shall not be as rushed as we were last night. The Home Secretary looks puzzled by that remark, but we were debating one of our own Bills--the Representation of the People Bill--and had 35 minutes in which to discuss 100 Lords amendments. I hope that this Bill will be given the most thorough scrutiny.
the risk of spurious challenge is outweighed by the principle of including indirect discrimination in respect of public sector functions in the Bill.--[Official Report, 27 January 2000; Vol. 343, c. 247W.]
9 Mar 2000 : Column 1219
Will he confirm that indirect discrimination will be included in the Bill to improve the practical effectiveness and fairness of our public services, and not simply as a rhetorical gesture to a perceived principle--a gesture that might do more harm than good and would not serve anybody's interests in the long term? I hope that the Home Secretary's change of mind on indirect discrimination will not be quite as disastrous as I believe his change of mind on abolishing the right to jury trial will probably be.
Can the Secretary of State tell us about the exact nature of the public services that might be affected by the inclusion of indirect discrimination provisions? For example, will police beat routes be open to challenge in the courts? The Home Secretary should think about it if he does not understand. How will the national health service be affected? What about the siting of fire stations, police stations and hospitals? Public bodies dealing with transport, including Transport for London, will presumably be covered. Will decisions on bus and rail routes and on timetables be open to challenge? Those are areas which were originally thought could be open to challenge. If we are being told that the Government have found some way of fining the measure so that such challenges will not be made, I would like to hear it. If not, and those things will be open to challenge, I would like to hear what practical effects that might have.
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