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In the remaining time allotted to me to speak, I would like to summarise what I hope the new law will secure in the course of its preparation and passage. The aim of law reform in this area should be to achieve an effective, efficient and equitable regulatory framework aimed at encouraging personal responsibility and self-generating efforts to promote equality. As I said, the groundwork was done in the Hepple report. There is a pressing need for clear, consistent standards. The Bill should consolidate existing law to make it more user-friendly and accessible. The Bill should establish an effective, efficient and equitable regulatory framework aimed at encouraging voluntary and easy steps to promote equality. As regards accessible remedies, individuals should be free to seek redress for the harm they have suffered as a result of unlawful discrimination through procedures which are fair, inexpensive and expeditious, and the remedies should be effective in achieving widespread change. There must be no hierarchy in the strands, and multiple discrimination needs to be dealt with.
There need to be measures to target particular behaviour or arrangements. I will say nothing about the scope or exceptions of the Bill, because this is not the place to do so. There need to be measures to facilitate general progress towards equality, with equality duties in the public sector and in the private sector. The torturous and unworkable equal pay legislation needs to be radically reformed. There need to be measures on positive action, reasonable adjustment and public procurement.
There are three important points about enforcement. First, there should be no levelling down of existing protection. Secondly, there should be effective individual remedies and scope for enforcement. Thirdly, there should be less emphasis on procedures and more emphasis on outcomes. The enforcement needs to be proactive. There is too much focus on eliminating discrimination by means of investigative and legal processes. The new legislation should be more proactive and less adversarial, without imposing unnecessary bureaucratic burdens.
I am glad to see in his place the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Handsworth, because he serves on an employment appeal tribunal among other things, and he will have great experience of how the law does and does not work. To make more efficient use of resources, complicated discrimination cases need in some way to be referred up from the employment
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I have said nothing that should be controversial. I hope that all parties would support sensible measures of that kind. I realise that the Minister cannot give assurances about that. I ask that such points be very carefully considered by Ministers as they prepare legislation, and that they will meet Members of this House who have particular expertise to discuss those issues at an early stage, before policy is finalised. That would help to deal with this ridiculous anomaly, whereby a person who is told that he or she is treated worse because he or she is black is to have a heavier burden of proving the case than a woman, or someone discriminated against on the basis of ethnicity other than colour, or any of the other forbidden grounds. I very much hope that the Minister can at least tell us tonight that the anomaly will at last be dealt with in primary legislation.
8.13 pm
Baroness Howells of St Davids: My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Lester, who seeks to have the same burden of proof applied to cases relating to colour as to cases alleging discrimination on the grounds of race and ethnicity. With the same spirit and commitment that he has shown when addressing bigotry, he has in his opening remarks today presented the House with a compelling case to consider. I feel that the House is already persuaded, which makes my task very easy.
With the indulgence of noble Lords, I will bring a practical example to the attention of the House. I have been engaged in visiting schools and, from time to time, I meet young people with real problems. At one school, a sixth-former told me that he is always being stopped by the police, he is detained from getting to school on time and he feels harassed. The boy is considered to be a bright and serious student by his teachers. He asked the policeman why he was being stopped. The policeman, who was white, said, “It is because you are black”. I leave noble Lords to judge, but my belief is that he was stopped because of his colour. With the law as it stands, he would have the onus of proof left to him to make his case. How could he?
If the policeman had said, “You were stopped because you are of a different ethnic group” or, “because of your race”, the law currently states that the onus of proof, as explained by the noble Lord, Lord Lester, would be on the policeman to prove that he did not discriminate. The action has sown a seed that will make things difficult for the victim, who is left seeing his colour, which he cannot change, as a major obstacle to his development.
The second reason I support the noble Lord, Lord Lester, is that the law should be consistent. It should deal with colour in the same way as ethnicity and race, as in the Race Relations Act. Maybe the
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If a dog bites you, you get a shot, and in most cases you heal in a matter of days. If you are hit on the head with a truncheon, you might get knocked out, but usually the pain is gone within a few days. The issue here is not the dog, or the truncheon, but the psychological segregation, which digs deep into the psyche. It does not heal easily, and it continues to cripple people of colour. I remember a rhyme I heard growing up, “If you are white, you are right; if you are yellow, you are mellow; if you are brown, stick around; if you are black, get back”.
The colour of skin breeds a sense of inferiority that drives men to drink, boys to become disaffected with the system and girls to get pregnant rather than finish their education. It gnaws away at self- confidence, until the young believe that they cannot do anything right, when they are treated less favourably than others on the grounds of colour. That has wider implications for society than many of us care to think about. I invite the Government to think again.
8.17 pm
Baroness Prashar: My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, for initiating the debate and for bringing this anomaly to the attention of the House. As the noble Lord, Lord Lester, explained, there is an unfair gap in the law. When an individual experiences discrimination based on her race or ethnicity, she has the benefit, correctly so, of a reverse onus of proof. The burden of proving that there was no discrimination shifts to the defendant. The same benefit does not apply to an individual who experiences discrimination based on her colour or national origin. That distinction itself creates inequality. Those who experience discrimination based on race or ethnicity are treated differently, and better, than those whose colour or national origin are the basis of their discriminatory treatment.
It cannot be that this unequal application of anti-discrimination law was intended, especially because the Race Relations Act prohibits discrimination on the grounds of race, ethnicity, colour and national origin. That gap is an example of inconsistencies and anomalies that characterise current anti-discrimination law. I very strongly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lester, who clearly and cogently expressed what is needed. As he said, this House has expertise in all the strands of discrimination. That expertise must be used to ensure that we get new equality legislation based on the criteria that he so clearly described and that the standards that he set are met.
As someone who has over the years been involved in the implementation of anti-discrimination legislation, I think that there is a great deal of merit in ensuring
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As the noble Lord, Lord Lester, said, some excellent work was done in 2003 by Bob Hepple on the noble Lord’s Equality Bill. That provides a very helpful model on which the single equality Bill can be based. Combining that work with the expertise in this House, I very much hope that we can move to a single equality Bill based on the criteria so clearly outlined by the noble Lord. I hope that the Government will ensure not only that the inconsistencies and anomalies are remedied, but that the forthcoming Bill will meet the criteria and provide a framework that will help us to promote equality in a consistent manner.
8.21 pm
Lord Slynn of Hadley: My Lords, I apologise to your Lordships for not having put my name down to speak. Perhaps I may be permitted, with serious—perhaps almost unparalleled—brevity to put down a marker and say how much I agree with the Question raised and the answer proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Lester. We have now on all stages, nationally and internationally, very strong statements banning—forbidding—discrimination on many different grounds. As the years go by, Governments and international organisations add to the list. The work of courts and tribunals in dealing with discrimination cases is not easy. Having been president of the Employment Appeals Tribunal for some years, I know how difficult those cases can be.
It is very important that we should strive to avoid differences between the various grounds of discrimination. It is also extremely important that we should root out or prevent technical discrimination between the different cases, unless there is very good reason for it. Having a different burden of proof in different areas is very difficult to justify. I do not believe that there is any justification for having a different burden of proof between the three categories to which the Question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Lester, refers. I very much hope that the Government will, at the very least, look at the matter again but, more hopefully, do something to remove what I regard as an unnecessary anomaly.
8.23 pm
Lord Roberts of Llandudno: My Lords, we all agree that we are deeply indebted in so many senses and so many different ways to my noble friend Lord Lester for his contribution in the field of human rights. I thank him for what he has done and what he is doing today. I will not speak at great length. We see another move in the right direction, removing one sort of
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We are in an era when the past, with all its suffering and all its discrimination, is a matter of great embarrassment to us. Martin Luther King, one of my great heroes, said in that great speech of his that he dreamt of the day when his children would be judged not by the colour of their skin, but by content of their character. Let me admit it here: I shall be singing hallelujah if Mr Barack Obama wins the presidency of the United States. It would be a tremendous leap forward.
I do not think that my noble friend would say that his Bill or his contribution today is anything but a move in that direction. Parliament here decided to implement the European directive by statutory instrument rather than by primary legislation. That is the cause of that discrimination. It does not apply to claims of discrimination on the grounds of colour or nationality. We want the directive implemented by primary legislation in the new equality Bill to come before this Parliament.
Enough has been said. I know that the Government are listening and will act. I look forward to singing the hallelujah chorus twice, once the equality measure is before this House and when a noble friend in another part of the world makes dreams come true.
8.26 pm
Lord Dixon-Smith: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Lester, is nothing if not consistent. I pay tribute to him for his stamina in pursuing the subject over many years. He has laid out tonight a solid case where the law is apparently in a small way inconsistent. What I have not heard him do—perhaps that was in the interests of brevity—is lay out a lot of cases where people have been disadvantaged as a result of this slight inconsistency in the law, shall we say? I have to say that he has made a very solid case for removing that inconsistency. If there is a legislative opportunity, it should be taken. I do not know what is the Government’s programme in the medium or longer term; I know that it is immensely crowded in the short term. This is a matter that only government can deal with, but there would be no opposition from our party if there were, as part of some other Bill, a clause that put this anomaly to bed—one hopes for the last time.
Curiously, I am not ashamed of my past, whatever it may have been. If one looks through the tide of history, one sees immense injustice, inequity and bad treatment of all sorts of people of the same race, let alone of a different race. We had to learn to do away with those things, and the tide of human progress has been rolling steadily forward over the years with improvement in the interests of everybody—more recently, in the interests of all communities.
We had to be bad, it seems to me sometimes—this is not a justification for it—to learn how to become good. Your Lordships may think that that is an odd way of putting it, but in so much that we do, progress comes as a result of knowledge, and knowledge comes from looking at what we are doing at present. If we
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If there is an opportunity for this matter to be put right, it should be, but until that opportunity arises, we must ensure that the existing law is applied in such a way that people are not disadvantaged. The noble Baroness, Lady Howells of St Davids, said that this can be a psychological problem. I accept that it is very difficult to deal with psychological problems, but the law was never designed, as I have understood it, to cure psychological problems. The law has always been designed to cure injustice. The psychological cure will come when society in general treats everyone in the same way.
8.30 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Andrews): My Lords, I am sure that I speak for the whole House when I say that I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lester, for raising this important matter in debate. He has enabled noble Lords from all sides of the House to rally around and draw attention to what we all agree is a clear anomaly. I join other noble Lords in paying tribute to his long and distinguished career as an architect of the most progressive race-relations legislation in Europe. That is to the great credit of this House because, as he said, it has traditionally played a key role in challenging and getting the best out of our law. I am sure that that will continue to be the case when we bring the new equality Bill before this House and that conversations which draw on the experience of this House will be had. I am grateful, too, to all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate, particularly my noble friend Lady Howells of St Davids, because she always speaks with total authority and is always clear and compassionate. She always draws our attention to the real implications of our debates and the law that we are discussing.
The issue before us has been of particular concern to the noble Lord, Lord Lester. I am grateful for the opportunity briefly to explain how it fits in with our track record of tackling discrimination and to explain our next steps to improve and simplify the law for the benefit of all. I hope that he will not be too disappointed if I tell him that I cannot provide specific assurances on the different matters that he raised because we will bring forward shortly a Statement on the equality Bill which the House will understand I cannot pre-empt. I hope that he will understand from the tone of my remarks that he should have every confidence that, in seeking to harmonise existing law, we will seek to address inconsistencies and anomalies such as that which we are debating today in relation to the burden of proof.
I hope that I shall be able to go a little beyond telling the noble Lord things which he knows already, but it is useful to place on record the background, because there are two main issues for consideration in this debate. The first is the way in which European and UK law are connected; the second is the way in which their interaction has impacted on issues such as the burden of proof, to which all noble Lords have referred.
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The noble Lord will be aware of and welcome the way in which increasing equality has been at the heart of the Government’s policy—I shall not rehearse that. It in a way emphasises the nature of the anomaly that we have tried so hard to bring significant advance in giving individuals the right to fair treatment and to bring equality into the heart of policy-making and improved services.
The noble Lord’s case is that there is a different domestic test for the burden of proof applying to cases where discrimination on grounds of colour and, in effect nationality, is alleged from that which applies to cases where discrimination on the grounds of race or ethnic or national origins is alleged. The explanation for that is in the interaction between our historic and wide-reaching law in relation to race and the more recent requirements imposed by European race legislation. Those requirements are in areas that are drawn more narrowly than the protections that we have long applied. The perceived anomalies in the way in which the burden of proof operates for domestic race-discrimination cases are due to the way in which domestic law has been changed to meet our European obligations in respect of race, ethnic and national-origin discrimination. I shall explain why we introduced those changes in the way that we did. We are very keenly aware of those anomalies. We know that they affect other provisions in our race legislation, such as those relating to harassment and to various exceptions in the 1976 Act.
We have also made it clear that we want to address the range of these anomalies. Noble Lords will know that this week in the draft legislation programme we have already announced our intention to introduce a new equality Bill within the lifetime of this Parliament. That was anticipated in the Green Paper, A Framework for Fairness, which outlined the Government’s intentions for the Bill, which is intended to consolidate existing legislation, taking the opportunity to harmonise the law. Particular reference was given in the Green Paper of the Government’s wish to rectify such anomalies, particularly those relating to harassment and contained in the various exceptions.
The Bill will build on our proud record of anti-discrimination legislation. As the years have gone on, the significance of the 1976 Act has become clearer. In particular, the 1976 Act domestically has long been held to cover five separate dimensions of race; namely, racial, national and ethnic origins, and significantly, colour and nationality. A person who has suffered discrimination on any of those five separate dimensions can claim the protections in the Act. In many ways, this means that the breadth of our domestic race provisions introduced at that time ensured that the protection available in the UK against racial discrimination was way ahead of anything that applied through comparative European legislation.
Since 1976, things have moved on and some of the concepts in UK and European law have also moved on, partly as a result of a body of case law developing over the period. In 2000, the European Council introduced new protections in what is commonly referred to as the race directive, to implement the
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I emphasise that the breadth of protections in the 1976 Act meant that UK legislation had already met its requirements. The directive introduced certain new obligations that needed to be incorporated into our legislation, one of which was to make changes to the existing law covering the burden of proof with regard to cases of racial discrimination. That was achieved in Article 8 of the race directive, which required member states to adapt their domestic legislation to give effect to the reverse burden of proof in those areas with which the directive is concerned. Therefore, the UK subsequently was required to amend its legislation to reverse the burden in respect of race discrimination and harassment claims falling under the race directive; that is, race, ethnic or national-origin cases. This is where the problems identified by the noble Lord occurred in domestic legislation.
In order to comply with the deadline—I emphasise the deadline—for implementation of the directive, it was decided that rather than wait for an opportunity for primary legislation, which would have brought the burden of proof into full compatibility with the wider scope of UK race relations law, we would utilise the powers in Section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972 to transpose the additional requirements of the race directive into domestic legislation. That is a simple explanation. Using those powers is a common way of doing it, as the noble Lord knows.
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