 House of Commons |
Session 2008 - 09 Publications on the internet General Committee Debates Equality Bill |
Equality Bill |
The Committee consisted of the following Members:Alan Sandall, Eliot Wilson,
Committee Clerks † attended
the
Committee WitnessesAndrew
Copson, Director of Education and Public Affairs, British Humanist
Association William
Fittall, Secretary-General, General Synod of the Church of
England Richard
Kornicki, Parliamentary Co-ordinator, Catholic Bishops
Conference Maleiha
Malik, Muslim Women’s
Network Jon
Benjamin, Chief Executive, Board of Deputies of British
Jews Katja
Hall, Director of Employment Policy, Confederation of British
Industry Nick
Starling, Director of General Insurance and Health, Association of
British
Insurers Stephen
Alambritis, Chief Spokesman, Federation of Small
Businesses Dianah
Worman, Diversity Adviser, Chartered Institute of Personnel and
Development Sarah
Veale, Head of Equality and Employment Rights, Trades Union
Congress Public Bill CommitteeTuesday 9 June 2009(Morning)[David Taylor in the Chair]Equality BillWritten evidence to be reported to the HouseE
02 Chartered Institute of Personnel and
Development E
13 British Humanist
Association E
14 Catholic Bishops’
Conference E
22 Trades Union
Congress E
25 Equality
Network E
26 Association of British
Insurers E
27 National Union of
Teachers E
28 British Chambers of
Commerce E
29
YWCA E
30 Gender Identity Research and Education
Society E
31 Race on the
Agenda E
32 Kate
Phizackerley E
33 Law
Society 10.30
am The
Committee deliberated in
private. 10.39
am On
resuming—
That
the Order of the Committee of 2 June be amended by making the following
amendments to the Table in paragraph
(2)— (a)
in the first entry for Tuesday 9 June, in the third column, at the end
insert— ‘Muslim
Women's
Network Board
of Deputies of British
Jews’; (b)
in the second entry for Tuesday 9 June, in the second column, leave out
‘12.30 pm’ and insert ‘1.00
pm’; (c)
in the third entry for Tuesday 9 June, in the second column, leave out
‘6.00 pm’ and insert ‘5.00
pm’. To
put it straightforwardly, the motion amounts to adding two witnesses to
this morning’s sitting—the Muslim Women’s Network
and the Board of Deputies of British Jews—and extending the
sitting beyond 12.30 pm, when it was to end, to 1
o’clock. That will give a little extra time for the second panel
of witnesses. The third provision shortens the afternoon
sitting—the Committee’s opportunity to question
Ministers—by an hour, reducing the time from 4 o’clock to
5 o’clock, instead of 4 o’clock to 6 o’clock. I
hope that that will be agreed by the
Committee. Question
put and agreed to.
The
Chairman: I remind members and witnesses that we are bound
by the internal knives—the timetable agreed to last
week—which means that this morning’s first evidence
session must end no later than 11.30 am, and the second no later than 1
pm. I hope that I do not have to interrupt members or witnesses in the
middle of their sentences, but I will do so if need be.
I welcome the various
representatives—you are most welcome. We will first hear
evidence from the British Humanist Association, the General Synod of
the Church of England, the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and
Wales, the Muslim Women’s Network and the Board of Deputies of
British Jews. Would you please introduce yourselves to the Committee
and then we will get
moving? Maleiha
Malik: I am Maleiha Malik, representing the Muslim
Women’s Network. I am a reader in law at the school of law,
King’s college, London, specialising in equalities and
discrimination law.
Jon
Benjamin: I am Jon Benjamin. I am the chief executive
of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, which is the representative
organisation for the Jewish community in this country.
Richard
Kornicki: I am Richard Kornicki. I am a member of
staff of the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales. I have
also been appointed as parliamentary co-ordinator for the
conference.
Andrew
Copson: I am Andrew Copson, director of education and
public affairs at the British Humanist Association.
William
Fittall: I am William Fittall, the secretary-general
for the Church of England Synod and its Archbishops
Council.
Q
126126Mr.
Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con): Thank you,
Mr. Taylor. It is a pleasure to see you here this
morning. I want to
raise two issues, one of which has been raised specifically by the
Catholic Bishops Conference. I will question its representative first
and then other panel members can comment. The issue is the employment
exceptions for the purposes of religion, and the changes between the
Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003 and the Bill.
The Catholic bishops say that the Bill narrows the exception, while the
Government’s position is that it simply clarifies existing law.
However, you can read it both ways. This specifically looks at the
extent to which a particular religion or belief is a genuine
occupational requirement of a job. Can I ask you, Mr.
Kornicki, to set out your position and the extent to which you feel the
language in the Bill does or does not significantly tighten or limit
the exceptions in existing
law? Richard
Kornicki: Our understanding is that it is a distinct
tightening of the law. For example, the explanatory notes make clear
that a youth worker would not be entitled to the
benefit of the exemption. As this is now formulated, it
represents a misunderstanding of how religion works. It is not simply
an activity that takes place once a week in a particular place; it is
about the whole of life. Important functions will be carried out that
will be relevant to religious activity that might be more than, or
different from, simply leading liturgical
worship. I can give
you a brief example from The Catholic Herald of 29 May,
in which an advertisement was placed by the Catholic archdiocese of
Liverpool for an “Assistant co-ordinator for Faith Formation
(Marriage
and Family Life Ministry)”. It mentions a diocesan-wide role and
a requirement to be a practising Roman Catholic. It is primarily
concerned with teaching on marriage, family and life issues. It would
be inconceivable that the Church would be required to appoint to that
post somebody who was, for example, a flagrant divorcee in a parish who
had remarried somebody else civilly, and demonstrated by their life
publicly that they were wholly at variance with the teaching that they
were supposed to be
promulgating.
William
Fittall: Perhaps I can endorse what has been said
from the perspective of the Church of England. There is no doubt that
this is a substantial narrowing of the present exemption, which talks
of “for the purposes of
an organised
religion”. The narrowing
is considerable, particularly under paragraph 8. The Government have a
difficulty because they are bringing together various strands
of discrimination and, in relation to some strands, the present
exemptions are narrower than others. For example, exemption can be
necessary in relation to gender, because the priesthood, bishops,
rabbis and imams are confined to only one gender—that is quite a
narrow restriction. However, there are other areas where we need a bit
more scope than the provision provides.
The fundamental difficulty is
that, if a religious organisation is imposing a faith requirement on a
particular post—we have a lot of posts where we do
not—and saying, “You’ve got to be an Anglican, a
Roman Catholic, or whatever it might be”, we will, particularly
for representational or pastoral roles, want people to lead lives that
are consistent with the teaching of that particular Church or faith.
Our conviction is that the provision does not allow for that. You might
believe that some of our rules and disciplines are wrong, but our view
is that that is a matter of religious liberty—a matter for the
Church of England, Roman Catholics, the Jews or
whoever. We are not
seeking carte blanche, but if a religious organisation is employing
someone in a role for which you have to be a member of that faith, it
is reasonable that restrictions—whether they be on marital
history or whatever—can be part of the requirements. I think
that the provision would prevent that.
Q
128Dr.
Evan Harris (Oxford, West and Abingdon) (LD): Others might
want to come in on this subject, so I will not go on to a new topic.
When you say “or whatever”, do you mean gay people as
well? You gave the example of marital status, which means that gay
people would fall into that category, would they
not? William
Fittall: Gay people would not fall into that category
because the Church of England does not discriminate on what we would
describe as sexual orientation. The difficulty is that we have
requirements in terms of conduct.
Q
129Dr.
Harris: If they behaved as gay people do, that would mean
to have gay sex with someone, which would be outside
marriage.
William
Fittall: The discipline of many—in fact
most—Christian Churches and many other faiths is out of line
with what many people in society think. However, our view would be that
that is the discipline of that organisation. If people are employed in
a representational, pastoral or teaching role, the Government accept
that there will be exceptions, but we are arguing about how broad those
exceptions should be.
Q
130Dr.
Harris: Let us say that an Anglican who is a youth worker
does a good job, gets rave reviews, and is doing well. He then comes
out as being gay, his work does not suffer, and he is still doing well.
Would your organisation, or an organisation of a Church nature, have
the right to sack that person when they come out? Alternately, say
someone’s marriage breaks down and they are having a terrible
time personally. Do you think that you should have the
right—whether you choose to or not—to sack someone on the
basis of that private trauma, even though they are still doing a good
job by objective
standards? William
Fittall: There are two answers to that. First, I do
not think that the example of youth workers given in the explanatory
notes is correct. I do not believe that the provision, as
drafted, would prevent Churches or other religious organisations from
applying requirements to youth workers, because youth workers have a
very important teaching role. There is a misunderstanding there. One of
our difficulties is that this has appeared without any discussion with
any of us on the panel.
On the second point, it is
always difficult when people come into positions for which there is a
requirement. Sometimes people are required to be of a particular faith
but lose their faith when they are in the job. You face difficult
pastoral situations there, but if there is a requirement that you have
to be an Anglican or a Catholic, or one that refers to a
person’s personal life, we would contend that you have to have
the ability to impose those—both at recruitment and when someone
is in
post.
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