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Session 2008 - 09 Publications on the internet General Committee Debates Equality Bill |
The Committee consisted of the following Members:Alan Sandall, Eliot Wilson,
Committee Clerks attended
the Committee Public Bill CommitteeThursday 11 June 2009[Mr. Joe Benton in the Chair](Morning)Equality BillWritten evidence to be reported to the HouseE34
Saga E35 Gender Spectrum
UK E36 Stonewall
Housing E37 Diabetes
UK E38 Race on the Agenda
(additional memorandum) E39
Gender Matters E40
TransLondon E41 Mothers
Union E42 Unison and Fawcett
Society E43 University and
College Union E44 Equality and
Diversity Forum (additional
memorandum) 9
am
Clause 1Public
sector duty regarding socio-economic
inequalities Mr.
Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con): I beg to move
amendment 2, in
clause 1, page 1, line 29, leave
out subsection (3) and
insert (3) A Minister of
the Crown may by regulations list public authorities to which this
section
applies..
The
Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss
amendment 107, in
clause 1, page 2, line 17, after
England,
insert (l) the Financial
Services Authority; (m) the
Office of Communications; (n)
the Office of Fair Trading; (o)
the Office of Gas and Electricity
Markets; (p) the Security
Industry
Authority.. Amendment
108, in
clause 1, page 2, line 17, at
end insert (l) Transport
for London; (m) London Fire and
Emergency Planning
Authority; (n) London
Development Agency; (o)
Metropolitan Police
Authority.. An
amendment to include members of the GLA family in the socio-economic
duty. Amendment
109, in
clause 1, page 2, line 17, at
end insert (l) a fire and
rescue authority constituted by a scheme under section 2 of the Fire
and Rescue Service Act 2004, or a scheme to which section 4 of that Act
applies, for an area in England..
An amendment to include Fire
Authorities in the socio-economic
duty. Amendment
181, in
clause 1, page 2, line 17, at
end insert (3A) This
section also applies to those bodies responsible for inspecting or
regulating public sector
bodies.. An
amendment to ensure that the socio-economic duty applies to
inspectorates of public sector
bodies. Amendment
4, in
clause 1, page 2, line 18, leave
out subsection
(4).
Mr.
Harper: It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship
this morning, Mr. Benton. I shall speak to amendments 2 and
4 and the group of measures before us. I shall see whether you let me
get away with making some wider remarks on the clause or whether you
wish me to hold them over for a stand part
debate. Amendment
2 is straightforward. It deals with how the Government have decided to
set out the public authorities to which the clause relates. The
strategy they have adopted is to list a number of authorities, but
clause 2 gives Ministers the power by regulations to amend primary
legislation. The Conservatives are reluctant to allow Ministers the
power to amend primary legislation by order and the amendment sets out
a different
approach. We
would set out a power for Ministers of the Crown by regulations to list
public authorities to which the measure applied. If they wished to add
or remove public authorities from that list, they would simply change
the secondary legislation. That is a better way to go about things,
rather than allowing Ministers to amend primary legislation by order.
This is a technical amendment.
Amendment 4
would remove subsection (4), which applies the measure to partner
authorities of local authorities in relation to
their
preparation and
modification of a sustainable community
strategy. To
explain the purpose of the amendment, I need to explain our concerns
and objections to the measure. Ministers are a little confused about
the difference between discrimination and disadvantage, which point my
hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare has made
before. Ministers
appear to be confusing the poor opportunities of socio-economically
disadvantaged communities with discrimination. That is a wrong-headed
approach because the solution to sorting out socio-economic
inequalities is to deal with their root cause, and for Ministers and
other public authorities to tackle them. For example, the reason for
the educational disadvantage experienced by those who come from poor
areas is often that they do not have access to good schools. The duty
in the Bill is not the solution; rather, it is for bodies to do
something to arrange the provision of good
schools. My
concern about the measure, and the argument for the amendment, is that
Ministers are in danger of setting expectations that are destined to
failit is as if the clause says, Everyone has the right
to a good life. We do not solve such problems simply by passing
a law. A good example is the fuel poverty legislation that the House
passed a number of years ago. It effectively said that fuel poverty
would no longer exist. Of course, several years after that legislation
was passed by the House and the other place, fuel poverty still
existsindeed, it is getting worse, not better. That is a
fundamentally wrong-headed approach to solving some of those
problems.
Mr.
Tim Boswell (Daventry) (Con): On that specific point, is
it not the issue that although it may well suit Ministers to place on
public authorities high-sounding obligations that look tremendous on
paper, in the absence of sanctions that could in an extreme case apply
to individual members of those authorities, as in the example of fuel
poverty, they amount to
nothing?
The
Chairman: Order. Before the hon. Gentleman replies, may I
take the opportunity to refer to his opening remarks? It is perfectly
all right to allow as broad a scope as possible for debate on the
amendments, but I remind the Committee that in relation to clause stand
part I have the power to circumvent any further discussion if, in my
opinion, the clause has been discussed adequately. I just point that
out, but there is no harm at all in what is going
on.
My
hon. Friend the Member for Daventry made a good point and it goes
wider, because if we put responsibilities on a range of
authoritieswe are talking about a significant list and there
are amendments that would widen itwe must think about not only
the duties that we are placing on them, but the resources that we grant
them. If we place a lot of responsibilities on public authorities
without the concomitant resources, we may be setting up not only
Ministers, but that significant list of authorities, to fail. From a
public policy perspective, that is not
sound. Let
us consider the partner authorities and the sustainable community
strategy, which raise another issue. The authorities listed fall into
two categories. Some are unelected quangos, which are in effect at some
point responsible to central Government. Others, however, such as
county and district councils, the Greater London authority and London
borough councils, are elected authorities. The decisions to be taken
about the extent to which they take into account socio-economic
inequalities and disadvantage and the extent to which they make
judgments about resource allocation are legitimate judgments, but they
are judgments for political
discourse. It
is for electors to make decisions when they elect different members of
those authorities and it is for those authorities to make the decisions
in debate, weighing up all the factors concerned. It is proper for that
to be done at that level and not for Ministers to seek to put duties on
them. Amendment
4 relates to the authorities drawing up their sustainable community
strategies. They would, by their very nature, be better drawn up at a
very local level by those authorities that know their areas best, know
the people the best and know the relevant factors. They are very
familiar on the ground with the disadvantage and the socio-economic
factors, and it is for them to draw up the strategy, recognising that
they are accountable to the people who elect
them. There
is a different argument, and Ministers perhaps have a stronger case
when they talk about bodies that are subordinate to Ministers, but even
then it is really for Ministers to make political judgments about
socio-economic inequalities and resources and how they allocate them,
and for those arguments to take place in the House and the other
place.
Sandra
Osborne (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Lab): Does the hon.
Gentleman accept that the equality duty, be it in respect of gender,
race or whatever, should apply equally to all authorities? If so, what
is the difference between that and the disadvantage caused by
socio-economic
inequalities?
Mr.
Harper: The hon. Lady comes back to a point that I made at
the beginning about stamping out discrimination and confusing
discrimination with disadvantage. They are not the same thing at all.
The socio-economic inequality referred to is different qualitatively
from the protected characteristics and stamping out
discrimination. I
think I am right in saying that in the evidence-taking sessions the
hon. Lady was concerned that the clause does not apply to the Scottish
Government. One thing I thought while she was making those points was
that, particularly in relation to those hon. Members who supported
Scottish devolution, the decisions that the Scottish Government make on
their policies and resource allocation and how they go about tackling
disadvantage are surely for Scottish electors to consider when they
choose who represents them in the Scottish Parliament. The Scottish
Government have to make those decisions when they weigh up their public
spending priorities and other decision making. It is surely in that
forum that those challenges should be addressed. If the Scottish people
feel that the Scottish Government are not making the right decisions,
they have the opportunity to throw them
out.
Sandra
Osborne: I totally agree. I am a firm supporter of
Scottish devolutionI would even say that I am one of its more
ardent supporters among my colleaguesbut there is the capacity
to adopt the duty in Scotland through a Sewel motion. It would then be
up to the Scottish Government and the Scottish public authorities to
decide how to implement it. I think that the Scottish people want
Westminster and the Scottish Government to work purposefully
together.
Mr.
Harper: The hon. Lady makes a good point. Clearly, I would
have no objection if the Scottish Government decided to do that. It
would be a matter for them, and if they wished to adopt the duty, that
would be absolutely fine. My point is that devolution implies that
authorities will tackle things differently.
John
Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con): Does my hon. Friend
agree that an additional distinction can be made between disadvantage
and discrimination? The grammar of discrimination is rightly all about
perpetrators and victimspeople discriminating unfairly against
others, who lose out as a result. Disadvantage is an important concept,
and the Government have rightly made efforts to wipe it out, but it is
very different. It is not about perpetrators and victims in the same
way that discrimination is; it is about systematic problems and
failures and about assisting, helping and supporting. By definition,
the public policy solutions required to deal with disadvantage are very
different from those required to deal with discrimination, which is why
disadvantage does not fit so well in such a
Bill.
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©Parliamentary copyright 2009 | Prepared 12 June 2009 |