The
Chairman: Order. I have to point out to the hon. Gentleman
that new clause 18 is outside the scope of the Bill. I am sure that he
has enough ingenuity to keep to human rights, but we cannot discuss new
clause 18
specifically.
Mr.
Boswell: I can genuinely say, Mr. Benton, that
you took the words out of my mouth, because I was well aware of that.
New clause 18 is slightly outside the scope of the Bill, but the idea
would be to give the commission the power of supporting litigation in
strategic cases, if necessary. I do not think that we need argue that
further; the point has already been made.
Essentially, if
we are going to have public sector duties in relation to equality and
to go beyond the mere concept of avoiding discrimination, we should be
looking at whether public authorities should have a wider duty to
promote human rights. After all, that is what I suspect we, as
legislators and citizens, would want them to have anyway.
In the last
analysis—I concede this to the Solicitor-General before she
resists the amendment, which I suspect she feels is her
duty—this is not simply a matter of law. The EHRC’s
specific inquiry pointed out, and closed on, the importance of
leadership on this issue, with which I agree. It is almost a matter of
repatriating the human rights debate from the weirdos on the fringes
and making clear that this concerns our human rights collectively. As
it is about our rights, we should take the matter seriously and, in one
way or another, we should incorporate the duty into legislation at some
stage, if not
now. John
Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con): It is a pleasure to see
you in the Chair, Mr. Benton. My hon. Friend has taken a
clause that deals with the public sector equality duty, and which seeks
to create a higher purpose for parts of the Bill, and has elevated it
to a higher plane still by talking about human rights. I shall confine
myself to slightly more Earth-bound matters by sticking to the public
sector equality duty as it stands in the Bill, and by speaking to
amendments 19 to 21.
Mr.
Boswell: As a postscript to my remarks, does my hon.
Friend agree that although the clause as drafted is important—I
look forward to hearing his comments about it—one of the dangers
in this debate is that if we merely fulfil the obligation for what
might be considered to be fairly narrow duties, we might somehow miss
the point about being able to look at some of the wider issues and the
collectives as well. It is much easier to go forward on discrimination
legislation than it is on the human rights
agenda.
John
Penrose: I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, and
I respond to him by quoting something that he cited earlier: of course
human rights “are the day job”. All of us should keep
them in mind, not just in this debate, but more widely and no matter
what. Emily
Thornberry (Islington, South and Finsbury) (Lab): There
are times when the Committee’s proceedings are something of a
revelation. We learned a few weeks ago that the hon. Gentleman was a
feminist, and we now learn that he believes that it is his duty to
ensure that human rights are implemented. Does the Conservative party
now enthusiastically support the Human Rights Act
1998?
John
Penrose: We are learning a great deal about both my
party’s position and the Labour party’s view of it.
Without wishing to try your patience, Mr. Benton, I suspect
that the hon. Lady knows that my party’s position on the Human
Rights Act is that it should be modified substantially by introducing a
British Bill of Rights, which would be importantly different in some
respects and, we believe, better. None the less, I hope that we can
agree on the importance of human rights, however we choose to pursue
them.
Dr.
Evan Harris (Oxford, West and Abingdon) (LD): Will the
hon. Gentleman give
way?
John
Penrose: With
trepidation.
Dr.
Harris: The hon. Gentleman need not give way with
trepidation. I rise merely to ask in what significant way the human
rights provisions that he wishes to see in a British Bill of Rights
would be different from what is currently in place. It is impossible to
understand amendment
242—
The
Chairman: Order. I think that we should return to the
amendment.
John
Penrose: Thank you, Mr.
Benton.
Dr.
Harris: Will the hon. Gentleman give
way?
John
Penrose: Yes, although the eagle eye of the Chair is
watching.
Dr.
Harris: I am a little confused by your ruling,
Mr. Benton. I sought to engage with the hon. Gentleman on
amendment 242, which is designed
to “respect
and protect the human rights of any person for
whom” there
is responsibility. We need to debate that in the context of the Bill.
My question to the hon. Gentleman, to get clarification, is: under his
regime, what would the human rights be, and how would they differ from
those that are currently engaged by the
amendment?
The
Chairman: Order. I apologise if the hon. Gentleman
misheard me. I understood that we were discussing a particular
amendment, not trying to clarify any individual party’s approach
to something. May we please return to the
amendment?
John
Penrose: I will endeavour to ensure that we make progress
on amendments 19 to 21 without trying your patience any further,
Mr.
Benton. As
I said, the public sector equality duty is, in many respects, a noble
purpose. It takes the anti-discrimination requirements in the rest of
the Bill and applies a higher standard and an additional set of
requirements to public bodies and those who seek to exercise their
public sector duties. It requires public bodies to eliminate
discrimination, harassment or victimisation, to advance equality of
opportunity, and to foster good relations between people who share a
relevant protected characteristic. Those are noble causes to which I am
sure that we would all sign up in principle. My concern is not with
those principles or the attempt to achieve such things, but with some
of the ways in which that is being done. I have a collection of
questions that I hope the Minister will answer. I wish to inquire how
effective the measures have been thus far, and look at proportionality
with regard to how difficult the outcomes are to achieve, how much they
cost, and whether the results that come through live up to the high
ideals that the clause invokes.
Amendment 21
is an attempt to get more evidence out there to show the effects of the
public sector equality duty. My office has attempted to find data on
existing public sector equality duties, even though those are narrower
and have not all been in effect for a long time. That was to check what
was out there and what had been achieved—this is not a brand new
idea; it has been around for some time.
In many
respects, we have found that where public sector equality duties
already exist, they are valued by the people involved with them. Many
people, particularly in the world of disability equality duties, for
example, believe strongly that the duty has so far resulted in people
with disabilities becoming more involved in getting the public sector
services aimed at them to be better designed, more applicable and
generally of a higher quality and standard than they would otherwise
have been. On its own, that might provide sufficient justification for
the equality duty. Although people value such involvement, and believe
that the services have been improved qualitatively, when the Minister
replies, I want some kind of quantitative Government assessment about
the outcomes that have been achieved from that involvement. From that,
not only could we see that people have been involved in the process and
value it—as I said, that is valuable on its own—but the
Government could show that there had been a genuine reduction in
discrimination and an improvement in the way in which public sector
services have applied to the people on the receiving
end. Mr.
Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con): My hon. Friend talked
about the way in which the disability equality duty, in particular, had
been valued by disabled people who have been involved by organisations
producing such services. The other thing that is worth
mentioning—this came through clearly from the Secretaries of
State’s reports on disability equality published by the Office
for Disability Issues—is that it was not just disabled people
who valued involvement. The ODI promoted the involvement of disabled
people in producing the reports. Although they did not legally have to,
it was the Departments, in addition to the disabled people, that found
it helpful to identify the areas to focus on. Therefore it is not just
disabled people who benefit from being involved when identifying the
areas of focus, but Departments and organisations
themselves.
John
Penrose: I thank my hon. Friend for that helpful
intervention.
Mr.
Boswell: This is a rider to that intervention. Does my
hon. Friend agree that one of the virtues of having it the assessment,
if it is done sensibly, is that it is a resource for providing better
customer service for people generally? When public authorities are
aware of the interests of those service users who have protected
characteristics, they often become more aware of the deficiencies of
their service to all of us.
John
Penrose: Both my hon. Friends are absolutely right. They
have illustrated the high purpose of the clause and the importance of
its aims. It looks as though there is some early evidence of progress
in the ways that my hon. Friends and I have mentioned. What we should
therefore see is not just evidence of people being
involved—valuable though that is—or evidence of public
sector authorities becoming involved with the people to whom their owe
the duty, but differences in outcome. We should see genuine
achievements and differences on the ground resulting from improvements
in quality, which people think they can see at the moment. That should
become visible in outcomes and be measurable on the ground.
If
the Government do not have evidence of that just yet—as I said,
some of the equality duties are at a relatively early stage—I
hope that the Minister will be able to give us examples of Government
plans to measure those outcomes in the future, to report on them
systematically, and to demonstrate regularly that the process is
working. I hope that the Government would do that anyway but, just in
case, amendment 21 would insert a requirement for that, which I would
regard as normal, good government anyway. The Minister has a chance to
show that the Government have got the process under way. If they have
not, they can accept the
amendment.
Mr.
Harper: My hon. Friend makes a good point about the data.
Again, if we consider the Secretaries of State’s reports on
disability equality duty, one of the themes that emerges is a variation
in how the relevant data were recorded across the Government. Just on
that one equality duty, Departments treat data in different ways.
Therefore, if we are now going to have a single public sector equality
duty, thought will need to be given, probably by the Government
Equalities Office, to how that data can be looked at across the
Government so that there is some consistency in the tracking. The
Secretaries of State’s reports that were co-ordinated by ODI
looked just at the disability equality duty. The Minister might think
about Secretaries of State having to produce something similar on the
public sector duty as a whole so that progress across the Government
can be
made.
John
Penrose: That is a helpful suggestion. If the Government
do not already have something similar in mind, I hope the Minister will
be able to take up that idea or tell us the Government’s
alternative approach.
It is
important that we can all see the concrete results of the equality
duty. One reason why is because there has been some criticism—I
am sure that we all, including the Government, have heard it—of
the equality duties that have been established thus far, particularly
from people who have been saying, “Well, it is just a
box-ticking, form-filling and paper-based exercise. There are no
practical, concrete outcomes that are coming out of it other than
employment for consultants, auditors and similar
people.” 11
am It
is therefore vital that we have such information so that we can refute
those charges. The Government are already aware of that. In fact, in
their response to the report on the Equality Bill carried out by the
Work and Pensions Committee a few months ago, they alluded to some of
the criticisms. They said that they were aware of them and that they
were concerned to ensure that they switched from outputs to outcomes,
whenever possible. I hope that their thinking on how to deal with such
issues is under way. It is important that it is, and that they take the
chance to put their approach on the record this
morning. Without
the evidence and without the response, the charge of box-ticking, the
charge of bureaucracy and the charge of form filling will continue to
be levelled, and the only way to shoot them down is with evidence of
outcomes. It will also allow the Government to assess costs and
benefits. Even if a substantial benefit is
being created once the evidence is available, as a Parliament, we will
clearly need to see the costs. We will have to weigh up the costs and
benefits. We will have to ask whether we can achieve the same benefits
at a lower cost and more efficiently and effectively and, if we can,
how that can be done. All those things require facts. All those things
require evidence, and we do not have enough of that at the moment.
Amendment 21 would fill that gap and provide us with some more crunchy
data on which to build policy
decisions. Mr.
Harper: The ODI published a specific example in the
Secretary of State’s report on higher education. The then
Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills said that there had
been an increase in the proportion of undergraduates who received
disabled students allowance, but recognised that, due to differences in
how the data were collected, there was simply not enough information to
look at the number of disabled students in further and higher education
compared to the wider population. It is now working with the ODI to
look at more consistent data. That is a good example of a situation in
which there is not the data even to know what the baseline is, let
alone whether further progress is being
made.
John
Penrose: That is another helpful example of the problem
that I am describing. To pursue that example, if it were clear that the
changes that my hon. Friend described were purely ghosts in the data
and not real progress, and all that was happening was some other
alteration that looked impressive until we genuinely got to the bottom
of it, that would be a great cause for concern. We would be kidding
ourselves if we thought that it was real progress. However, if the data
showed that things were advancing rapidly, everyone here could give
themselves a collective pat on the back and say that it is something
that is genuinely working and worth doing, and that perhaps we should
be doing more of. But we cannot make either of those decisions. We
cannot make a firmly based decision until we have the data, which give
us the firm foundation on which to make
it. John
Howell (Henley) (Con): Does my hon. Friend recall that the
Select Committee of which he was a member was worried that an authority
that was genuinely excellent in promoting equality failed in its duty
because it did not undertake the right impact assessments, while an
authority that was absolutely hopeless in its equality duty was seen as
good because it simply assessed all its policies and procedures in the
right way? That was one of our concerns about the way in which the lack
of information was
directed.
| 
