United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

Lord Avebury Excerpts

Monday 16th December 2013 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Avebury]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what was the outcome of their discussions with the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, during her visit to the United Kingdom on 6 November.

[The Senior Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government & Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Warsi) (Con)]

My Lords, my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary met Navi Pillay, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, during her visit to London on 6 November. The High Commissioner discussed with the Foreign Secretary a range of human rights issues including Syria, Burma, Sri Lanka and Iran, and our preventing sexual violence in conflict initiative.

[Lord Avebury (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness has left out one of the items which I know the High Commissioner discussed with Ministers, and that is the call that she made for the strong and swift implementation by the Government here of their new legal obligation to extend the Equality Act to include caste in the list of protected characteristics. Postponing that question until the other side of the general election is incompatible with the obligation. In the light of the High Commissioner’s advice, can my noble friend say whether the Government will speed up the timetable?

[Baroness Warsi]

My Lords, the Government are committed to outlawing caste discrimination. However, we are aware that legislating on the basis of limited evidence carries a serious risk of unintended consequences, and we need to get the detail of the legislation right. My noble friend has been a huge campaigner on this issue. I can assure him that the Government are committed to it, but it is important to ensure that the consultation on what that legislation would look like is completed, as well as making sure that the relevant groups that would be affected are fully brought into the process. He will be aware, of course, of the report of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, published in December 2010, which unfortunately proved to be quite divisive because people used it to support both sides of the argument.