Armed Forces (Prevention of Discrimination) Bill
Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Rory Stewart(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
On the contrary, both hon. Gentlemen are in order as they deal with this narrow Bill in, if I may say so, an intellectual way that the House appreciates.
Rory Stewart
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Let me expand on this a little for the hon. Gentleman. This is a question of proscribed grounds for discrimination, which is one of the five aspects of discrimination legislation that I set out. One needs to ask what the proscribed ground for discrimination is, and the Bill would add to gender, sexuality and disability the ground of occupation in the military. If the law accepts philosophically that there is an additional category in the proscribed grounds for discrimination, it would not be possible—no judge would consider this possible—to limit that simply to the provision of hospitality and not extend it to employment law, because the precedent of a proscribed ground of occupation would have been created.