John
Mason: I am restraining myself from intervening too often,
but on that point, is the picture that the hon. Gentleman paints not a
little bit away from reality? The reality in Glasgow, with which I am
familiar—I believe it is also the case in other cities and
boroughs—is that councils support the celebration of religious
and other cultural events across the spectrum. They might support a
larger group a little bit more, but my experience of local authorities
is that they are very good at supporting all sorts of groups in the
community. Is that not the way we want to
go?
Dr.
Harris: Local authorities do not need legislation of this
kind to do that. The provisions might mean that they have a
duty—not discretion—to do such things. Every religious
group might say, “We have a right to be funded to the same
extent as every other religion is funded or supported by
you”—by which I mean the public authority. There is no
bar to that expectation in the drafting of the provision. I am all in
favour of there being discretion, but the duty to have regard to the
need to provide equality of opportunity coupled with the fact that
public authorities are already funding some
religions to do certain things, will lead to more not less
religion-specific provision. It will also lead to more divisiveness and
more segregation in the delivery of public services. That is not
something we should be looking
towards.
John
Mason: Again, I wonder about the gap between the theory
and the reality. If, for example, a religious group is giving out soup
to homeless people at night, it will give it to every single homeless
person who is there. It would not know what someone’s religion
was, if they had a religion or about any such issues. Surely there is a
danger, if we go to the other extreme, of squeezing out all the
religious groups that hand out soup, and the people who will suffer are
the homeless people who will not get any more
soup.
Dr.
Harris: There is nothing wrong with local authorities
giving contracts to religious organisations. My concern is where
religious organisations discriminate on the basis of religion or
belief. An example is given in the explanatory notes to another part of
the Bill. Public funding may be used for adoption agencies, which
perform a critical public function. It is the Government’s
intention, apparently, to allow adoption agencies to discriminate
against people of the wrong religion in deciding who can apply to adopt
a baby.
Perhaps
Catholic adoption agencies are a particular attraction to prospective
Catholic parents. There is nothing wrong with that—indeed, they
could market more among those people—but to say, “No
Protestants can access services through us” seems to me to be
wrong in a public function, whether or not it is funded by the public.
It means that a Muslim organisation or Muslim individuals will say,
“Wow, there’s a Catholic adoption agency and we
can’t apply there. Equality of opportunity means by definition
that we should have our own adoption agency, which caters only for
us.” Then the Jews might say, “Well, we can’t
apply to the Catholic or the Muslim adoption agency. We want our
own” and then Protestants will want their own. The only group
that would not want their own—although they might be forced to
have one—is the atheists.
A
balkanisation of services would result, founded on the basis that
discrimination is allowed, for no good reason. I do not think the
parents’ religion matters, in the end, in terms of whether
babies will be well placed with them. I agree that Catholic adoption
agencies might encourage Catholic parents to come forward. They might
be good at recruiting parents, who are desperately needed; I do not
have a problem with that. But to have a blanket ban on people of other
religions accessing a public service is unjustified. Coupling that with
an equality duty will result in the same thing with every single
religious organisation, and only religious organisations. An adoption
agency cannot say, “No blacks,” so that balkanisation
would never occur in race; it occurs only in religion. The cat is
already out of the bag, unless we close it in this clause. I have made
that point enough times, so I promise not to return to it.
In the paper
provided to hon. Members, the EHRC makes the point that a possible
benefit of the public sector equality duty in respect of religion and
belief is improved access to health or other public
services “by
enhancing responsiveness to religious sensitivities and practices, such
as greater consideration of the impact of Ramadan observance in the
context of providing health care, support for students and even in
terms of adjusting scheduled timetables”.
I have not
argued that there is no merit in the proposal whatever; this is just a
series of risk-benefit analyses. However, many of the examples given by
the EHRC are clearly covered by subsection (3)(a), for example. If my
amendment is not made, and an amendment were later made to
remove subsection (3)(b), leaving in subsections (1)(b) and
(3)(a), any disadvantage suffered by people who cannot access services
could be covered. I would be prepared to see it covered; I cannot speak
for Lord Lester, who I suspect feels more strongly about the public
sector duty as it applies to religion. If a clear disadvantage is
suffered by people who share a relevant protected characteristic, the
provision can be left in, but that is different from a cited need. That
is why many of the EHRC’s examples can be addressed without the
need for subsection (3)(b), although I accept that some of them are
arguable. Many
of the EHRC’s examples are examples of unjustifiable indirect
discrimination. If one criterion for accessing health services in a
hospital is wearing a very immodest gown—both women and men are
made to wear them, but in this case, it is of concern to Muslim
women—and people cannot comply with that criterion because of
their religious belief, that is unjustifiable indirect discrimination.
Hospitals should provide—many do, and they all ought
to—appropriate hospital gowns that do not create such
discrimination. I do not believe that it is a question of need as laid
out
here. Other
examples given by the EHRC involve improving police practice and
attitudes across the public sector towards particular religious groups.
It is not my view that a public sector equality duty is needed to
achieve that, where it is required. That has been happening for a long
time, and I do not think that the public sector duty should hinge on
whether that is
done. The
EHRC gives the example of the provision of women-only gyms, but the
Bill already permits women-only gyms or swimming periods to be
provided. A public sector equality duty is not required to allow that
for, for example, Muslim women. Interestingly, the EHRC cites the
Southall Black Sisters in defence of extending the public sector
equality duty to religion and belief, but, in fact, that group has
written to the discrimination law review consultation strongly opposing
extension of the public sector equality duty to religion and
belief. I
quote from the organisation Women Against Fundamentalism,
which “is
opposed to the extension of the single equality duty to religion and
belief. We strongly feel that an extension will not promote equality
but will instead reinforce inequality...We would remind the
Equalities Office, that the right to manifest one’s religion,
unlike the race and gender equality duties, cannot be treated as an
absolute
duty.” It
says “duty”, but it is a right, of course. Women Against
Fundamentalism goes on to state that there
is “an
urgent need to address the complications that arise when religious
discrimination is treated unproblematically as an
‘equality’ strand. At national and local levels,
religious identity politics is being contested by women and others
within minority communities, as well as in the wider society in their
struggle to be free from racism, gender violence or other oppressive
restrictions whose persistence are themselves an indicator of
inequality.” That
group has concerns, and I know that the Minister will be aware of other
organisations that share them.
Southall Black
Sisters wrote to say similar things about its opposition to the
provision relating to religion. It stated in its letter of 8 October to
the discrimination law review
team: “Our
concerns about extending the equality duty to religion and belief stem
directly from our day to day casework experience and our struggle to
maintain a service for all black and minority women in a context where
the politicisation of religion (a deeply reactionary and discriminatory
development) worldwide, has resulted in the shrinking of secular
spaces—a necessary precondition in our struggle for
women’s human
rights.” The
letter goes on to explain the background of Southall Black Sisters,
which is a respectable organisation. That is why I am not surprised
that the EHRC should seek to cite it in support, but, in fact, the
group is clear that it is opposed to the duty. It
states: “By
seeking to include religion in the promotion of equality, our concern
is that the state will be signalling the view that the promotion of
equality involves supporting organisations of a particular faith or
belief even if they have beliefs that are profoundly exclusionary and
discriminatory. By extending the equality duty to cover religion, the
state will be implicated in promoting indirect discrimination and
inequality and indeed in human rights violations, leading to a watering
down of human rights standards where minority communities are
concerned.” I
do not say that the group is saying that that applies to all religious
organisations or, for example, to Muslim organisations in general, but
it is clear that its experience from the work that it does shows that
there is a problem. It does not want what it sees as the subjugation of
women by some religious organisations to be helped by the state through
a public sector
duty. I
have raised with the EHRC, as has Lord Lester, a concern about this
matter of public policy: religious organisations will say that equality
of opportunity means that their need to have creationism taught in
schools, or not to have casinos in their area will be supported by an
equality duty. For some reason, in its response, the EHRC seems to feel
that the concern is about legislation—that there would be a
positive duty in legislation to promote equality of opportunity. We are
talking about public policy, not
legislation.
4.30
pm Finally,
I return to the main concern. We must decide, when considering how to
proceed carefully and get the balance right, whether we will be a
bulwark to the increasing trend, and the fear of an increasing trend,
for public services, whether adoption, counselling or hospice services,
to be delivered on the basis of one religious group receiving from one
provider, and another religious group receiving from another. That
trend goes against the rest of the public sector equality duty, which
talks about fostering
“good relations
between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and
persons who do not share
it.” It
is a matter of concern that an attempt to promote equality might lead
to greater conflict.
We must be
certain that the promotion of equality will not be used by public
authorities to suppress free speech. Some people feel very strongly
about other people, and that might be because of those other
people’s religious views or behaviour. The people who feel
strongly are often, though not exclusively, of their own religious
view. There is a concern that public authorities will feel pressured to
restrict freedom of speech, to meet people’s need not to be
attacked—short of unlawful incitement
to hatred and violations of the Public Order Act 1986—and will
say, “We are not going to allow you to hold your meeting in our
hall.” I should like
an assurance from the Minister that, although we might not agree with
strongly held religious views being expressed against the followers of
other religions, the public sector duty will not be used by public
authorities to justify not allowing, for example, a fiery Baptist
preacher to preach in strong terms to his followers against followers
of other religions, short of breaching laws on incitement to religious
hatred. In promoting community cohesion, there is a natural concern to
prevent such activity, but we must recognise that the protection of
free speech trumps much of that concern when the speech itself is not
unlawful. I should be grateful for clarification and support from the
Minister on those
grounds. Amendment
297 is about exactly that need to protect free speech when public
authorities perform their duties. It is only a probing amendment, but I
want reassurance from the Minister that the duty will not be used to
undermine the free speech of individuals, whether they are religious or
not.
John
Mason: I appreciate the opportunity to speak this
afternoon, Lady Winterton. I want to start by touching on the final
remarks of the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon, who painted
perhaps a slightly extreme picture of where we are, or where we are
going. He used the word “balance”, which was encouraging;
we are looking for some kind of balance and compromise. We do not want
one group to be dominant over others.
I was
interested in the hon. Gentleman’s view that society might be
moving more towards religious organisations running things. I had felt
that things were the other way round. In Scotland, virtually all the
schools were started by Churches and have gradually come to be run by
the state and to become more secular. The trend that I and, I think,
other religious people perceive is away from religion and towards
secularism. I
am happy to welcome the clause and its intentions. The idea of a public
sector equality duty is good, and I welcome it on the whole. In the
Equality Act 2006 and the 2007 sexual orientation regulations, the
Government decided against extending the public duty on the grounds of
religion and sexual orientation because of the controversy that it
could have caused. The Government wanted to take their time. The
question remains: have we got the right balance?
Clearly, some
want the duty to do more, and others want it to do less. The BBC and
Channel 4, as publicly funded broadcasters, say that they are worried
that the duty goes too far and that it might affect their editorial
independence. I assume that the Conservative amendments in the next
group would address that. The TUC, however, says that the duty does not
go far enough and that it should apply to charities. Of course, much of
the detail on how the duty will apply is yet to be thrashed out in
secondary legislation, which we will come to when we debate clauses 145
to 149.
The Government
have taken on a monumental task in trying to square this circle.
Amendment 49 goes to the heart of what I have been trying to achieve
throughout the Committee, which is a recognition of the need for
balance between the various competing rights and the
fostering of good relations and mutual respect between people of
differing views, rather than one side being given a stick with which to
beat the other. I hope that I have found some support for
that. I am also
grateful that, although the Minister has not accepted any of my
amendments, she has sought to offer reassurance to religious groups
that religion does not come bottom of the equality pile. My amendment
would make that clear. In fact, it would make it clear that no strand
comes bottom of the pile, but that public authorities promoting
equality must balance all strands.
Subsection
(1)(c) mentions the need to “foster good relations”. I
must admit that that is one of the phrases in the clause about which I
am most enthusiastic. My amendment would make it clear that fostering
good relations involves a
“balance between
the rights of persons who share
a” particular “protected
characteristic and the rights of persons who share a
different...protected characteristic”.
Clearly, as is
now obvious to all, a clash is most likely to arise between rights
based on religion and belief and rights based on sexual orientation.
Some people feel that one strand dominates another. We have previously
talked about the case of Lillian Ladele, the Christian registrar. I
understand that since last week, one of Miss Ladele’s
colleagues has gone public about the fact that she too has been
disciplined and threatened with dismissal by Islington over her
conscientious objection to registering same-sex civil partnerships.
Supporters and opponents of Miss Ladele both feel that the Employment
Appeal Tribunal ruling on her case, which is being appealed, means that
every time religion conflicts with sexual orientation, the latter wins.
Adam Fuge, a principal at Matthew Arnold & Baldwin solicitors,
wrote in Personnel Today magazine in May that the Ladele case
means that there is
now “a
pecking order of competing
equalities” in
which religion often loses out.
| 
