Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill

Lord Avebury Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deben]

My Lords, I put my name to this amendment because it seems a very fundamental and simple question. Is it right that a person who is a subject of Her Majesty in this country shall not be able to claim against discrimination when they would be able to in India or Nepal, or indeed in Bangladesh? Is it right that when we have clear evidence that caste has become a feature in this country, they have no defence against it?

I have had very informative and helpful discussions with the Minister responsible in another place and the usual extremely well thought-out discussions with the noble Baroness. It is with considerable sadness that I have to say to her that I am not convinced by the Government’s argument. First of all, it has only just become the Government’s argument. In opposition, the Conservative Party said that this was necessary because it was the only way in which more than 400,000 of Her Majesty’s subjects could properly be protected. If it were possible for the Government to explain to the House that in taking office there were circumstances of which they were unaware that changed their mind, then I would be happier.

However, that is not the argument that has been put forward. What has been suggested is that we need to have yet another investigation. As the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, rightly says, the investigation by the previous Government was not by some small, unimportant body without respect, but by exactly the people to whom one might turn to find that answer, and their answer was unequivocal. It seems difficult to suggest there should be yet another investigation unless there is a clear statement of what has changed since that one, what was missed out by that one or what the Government felt should further be looked at which had not been looked at. Yet that is not anywhere in the Government’s response.

I believe we have to look at this extremely carefully for a reason which will be perhaps more understood on these Benches than anywhere else. If there is one thing that really annoys people about immigration, it is when people bring to this country attitudes that are wholly contrary to the traditions of Britain. That is why people have reacted so firmly against the attempt, for example, to introduce Sharia law into this nation. Most people in Britain feel that we have a society that should be welcoming, but it should be welcoming on the terms of the tolerance that has been so much part of our history.

There are, after all, fewer Jews in this country than there are Dalits. They are wholly protected under the laws. There are fewer Sikhs in this country than there are Dalits, but they are wholly protected under the laws. Most people would say that there is no place for discrimination by caste in Britain. If there is no place for that discrimination, how can it be that all the other discriminations for which we think there are no place are covered by the law but this one alone is not?

I have to say to my noble friend that I find the arguments used deeply distressing because they go like this: first of all, that we do not know quite enough about it so let us have a further investigation. Frankly, having had the investigations up to now, if it turns out that there are no cases, what harm will have been done? We will have protected people and they will feel protected. If it turns out the investigation that took place under the previous Government was unnecessary and its findings were not true, then we have done no harm. However, if we leave it for another year—and I am told, with some authority, that we will have to wait only a year for a further investigation—we will have another year in which people have no recourse, and at the end of that we may still have no recourse, because there will not necessarily be a legislative opportunity for us to bring this home to the Government.

The second reason that I find so difficult to hear is that we will not deal with it that way anyway, but will deal with it through education, with or without the investigation. Here I do not want to follow the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, except to say: what do people say in this education? A Dalit in a class says “Okay, I shouldn’t be discriminated against, but what happens if I am?”. The fact that there is now education on this means that the answer will be, “Tough luck, because there is nothing you can do about it, as we have specifically refused to ensure that there is an opportunity for you to take your case”. That is a recipe for lack of integration, poorer community relations, and a worse situation than would have arisen had we had no education or had not raised the matter in the first place.

The third reason that comes up is one that I find more distressing than any other. Every Minister who speaks about it—and we have two Ministers of particular quality here—assures me that they are totally committed to the eradication of discrimination, which includes the eradication of discrimination on the grounds of caste, but that theirs is a better way to do it. I believe that a decision has been made somewhere else that is not on this ground at all, and is not worthy. It is no good listening to those who, in their own circumstances, have a view of caste that is different from that of the majority of us in this House.

In Britain no one should suffer discrimination on the grounds of anything that they cannot help. They cannot help their sexual orientation and their colour; they very often cannot help their religion, or they have chosen that religion; and they cannot help their gender. What on earth is different when they cannot help their caste? You can change the name from “untouchable” to Dalit, but you cannot change the fact that some people are treated in an appalling way, simply because of the person they were born.

I have absolutely no doubt that it would be utterly wrong for us to say to the world that we had the opportunity to protect people from this disgraceful discrimination but decided not to do it because we had to have another investigation. I invite all noble Lords to look back on the history of the fight against discrimination. What happened at every point? Those who did not want to change suggested that we looked again and examined it once more. They said, “Let education deal with it; it’ll all come right in the end”. It was only when we changed the law, however, and made it wrong not only morally but legally as well, that we actually had a change in attitudes and gave the protection which was needed.

I want to finish by saying something very tough: if anybody in this House has any history of discrimination—whether it is the small amount that Catholics have today, which is still real, or the great amount that people have because they are of colour or Jewish or in any other minority group—let them make sure that they do not fail the Dalits, because they have a greater responsibility than those who are lucky enough not to have suffered discrimination as a subject of Her Majesty.

[Lord Avebury]

My Lords, I have seldom listened to a more powerful speech in this House. I agree with every single word that was said by the noble Lord, Lord Deben, except for one very minor point which has to be mentioned. The Government are not proposing to undertake any further investigation, but simply to review the investigations that have already taken place. Therefore, what they are proposing to do is of even less consequence than he credited them with.

We already know, from the study undertaken by the National Institute for Economic and Social Research—which was mentioned by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, in introducing this amendment—that caste discrimination actually occurs in the United Kingdom. That study confirmed that discrimination and harassment of the type that would be dealt with under the Act exists in the UK, as was reiterated only the other day in a letter from one of its authors, Hilary Metcalf, to my noble friend Lord McNally.

The Government now recognise the existence of caste discrimination. As the Minister for Equalities said, in words very similar to those used by my noble friend Lord Deben just now,

“We obviously do not think that anyone should suffer prejudice or discrimination, whether it is because of caste or any other characteristic. Such behaviour is wrong and should not be condoned, whether or not it is prohibited by legislation”.

However, no Minister has explained properly, in the extended correspondence that we had with the Government over the past three years, why caste should be treated differently from age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation—the protected characteristics that are already covered by the Equality Act.

The Minister Helen Grant MP wrote to us on 5 February, saying:

“We need to be satisfied that it is the most appropriate and targeted way of tackling a specific problem before legislating”.

I respectfully suggest that Parliament wisely decided that legislation was indeed the right way to tackle discrimination across the board after many years of trying to apply remedies to particular kinds of discrimination such as for race—with the Race Relations Board—or gender, by compliance with the 1979 UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Nobody ever said that before including race and gender in the Equality Act, we needed to be satisfied that it was the most appropriate and targeted way of dealing with the problems that still remained. Legislation was seen as the top storey of the edifice of ways of tackling discrimination of all kinds. The onus is on the Government to prove that, in the unique instance of caste, we should return to non-legal remedies which proved insufficient in respect of the nine existing protected characteristics and are no substitute for the right to take complaints of discrimination to court.

The original reason given by the Government for failing to enact Section 9(5)(a) was that there was no consensus on the need for legislation even among the communities that were potentially most affected by it. We naturally interpreted that as meaning the Dalit communities whose members are the victims of this discrimination. However, it emerged in a letter from the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, to the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, of May 2012, that the reference was to the wider Hindu and Sikh communities. In that sense, there is never a consensus for legal measures against particular kinds of discrimination. The policy of ending apartheid in South Africa was vociferously opposed by certain groups within the white population. At one time, plenty of men’s organisations were opposed to women’s equality, including, I may say, Parliament itself, and there are still institutions opposed to LGBT rights. Fortunately, the absence of consensus was not used as an argument for blocking legislation for the rights of racial minorities, women or gay people.

However, I realised quite recently that some Hindus and Sikhs believe that what we are seeking to do labels their communities as a whole as persecuting Dalits. I assure them that nobody has any such idea, any more than the Equality Act labels native British as being intrinsically racist, or men as being intrinsically misogynist. There are already cases where litigants such as the Begraj have done their best to use the existing law to make a claim on caste discrimination grounds in the courts. However, there has been no suggestion that a handful of cases point to a general pattern of conduct among people belonging to certain religions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

As I continue laying out the Government’s response, I will answer more directly the points that my noble friend has made. I want to make it plain that there are other forms of prejudice from which people in this country suffer to a great extent for which no clear, direct legislation exists to prevent it happening.

The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, provided some rather shocking evidence and stories of discrimination outside the UK, as did other noble Lords. The Government have to legislate to tackle what happens in this country; that is what we—what all Governments—must ensure that we do. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Flather, talked about the huge number of crimes committed against Dalits in India. We have existing criminal law here in Great Britain for dealing with those kinds of assaults and other crimes if they take place in this country.

At this point, let me make it clear that we remain willing to consider whether there may be a case for legislating specifically in regard to caste discrimination, and hence our willingness to meet representatives of the key groups. I will return in a moment to the circumstances that would lead us to such a decision, and why we remain unconvinced that legislation is the best answer. It is clear from the NIESR report, which is the most robust study available so far, that the majority of incidents of caste-related prejudice or abuse would not be covered by equality legislation. Our assessment is that the great majority of cases in the report are either in areas outside the legislation—such as in relation to volunteering, which is not covered by discrimination law—or would already be subject to redress through a range of measures from claims for constructive dismissal to criminal prosecution. That said, we are clear that no one should suffer prejudice because of caste. Such prejudice should not be condoned and it should never be ignored, and that is why I am pleased that the Government have announced that they are taking clear action to tackle caste prejudice and discrimination through an education initiative. I thank my noble friend Lord Sheikh for his support for this initiative, and I must say that I was rather surprised that the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, dismissed it as being patronising and interfering. Even if a new law on caste discrimination was to be introduced, without education it would not address the underlying causes.

[Lord Avebury]

Did my noble friend note the quotation I gave from the NIESR report which talked about the educational effect of legislation? The fact is that because employers would have to discharge their responsibilities, they would educate their workforces and thus the whole of society.

[Baroness Flather]

Who is going to educate whom? We have put down so many things under education that I should think they could fill a whole blackboard. Without legislation, I do not understand who will give this education and who will be educated.

Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill

Lord Avebury Excerpts

Wednesday 9th January 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Harries of Pentregarth]

My Lords, in supporting the amendment, I remind noble Lords that when Section 9(5)(a) first came before the House, it had significant all-party support. I refer noble Lords to a statement by the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, on 11 January 2010, reported in col. 341 of Hansard.

The previous Government sensibly decided that they needed to test the evidence. They commissioned the most reputable body in the country to examine the issue. It came up with a clear statement that there was evidence of discrimination on the basis of caste. I will repeat briefly its summary. The study by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research stated:

“The study identified evidence suggesting caste discrimination and harassment of the type covered by the Equality Act 2010 in relation to … work (bullying, recruitment, promotion, task allocation) … provision of services … and … education (pupil on pupil bullying)”.

There is an important qualifying note that states:

“Pupil on pupil bullying is not directly covered by the Equality Act 2010. However, the actions of a school may be covered where it deals with bullying in a particular way because of a protected characteristic (e.g. race, sex)”.

So the most reputable body in the country for this kind of research produced evidence of discrimination; we should be quite clear about that.

What does this mean in practice? I made a point of interviewing somebody who claimed that he had been discriminated against on the grounds of caste. He had trained in India in the medical field and was extremely well qualified. He came to this country and worked in the NHS. Everything went fine for a year with the man’s job. Then he applied to his supervisor for leave to go home for a family wedding. His supervisor inquired where he lived, and who his family and other contacts were. From that moment, the relationship changed totally. The person in charge clearly felt that this man’s family and caste were beyond the pale. Life was made absolute hell for him. He took his case to the trade union, which said that he had certainly been discriminated against on the grounds of caste but that there was nothing in legislation that would enable it to bring a case on those grounds. He had to leave his job. I am glad to say that he got another job in the NHS which has gone extremely well. This person was extremely well qualified and well balanced. I was absolutely convinced that he had suffered discrimination on the grounds of caste alone.

The main question before the Committee today is: why have the Government delayed on this for two whole years? I can quite understand their initial response that they needed time to think about it, but why two years? There seem to me to be three possible reasons. The first is a general reluctance to legislate and the realisation that there is a major educational problem to be tackled. Would not the Minister agree that one major tool of education, as we have seen in the issue of race relations, is good law? No one can doubt that the law on discrimination on the grounds of race has had a powerful educational effect. Secondly, people speculate that there is pressure from India. India has very good legislation in theory about that; the problem there is in implementing it in practice. India has good legislation. I see no problem coming from India. On a recent parliamentary visit there myself, I inquired about that but could find no evidence for it. Thirdly, people say that opposition must be coming from some people. Where is that opposition coming from? I must report that there have been increasingly unsatisfactory replies from the Minister in charge of this area. An expression that keeps occurring in letters is,

“those communities potentially most affected … by the introduction of legislative protection against caste discrimination”,

could affect,

“a wide range of Hindu and Sikh communities, not limited to those of any particular caste.

The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, has puzzled over this. We wondered what the implication of this would be for race relations or abolishing apartheid in South Africa. Are we to say that we should not have abolished apartheid in South Africa because other people in the country might be affected by the legislation? That seems absurd.

A letter from the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, was answered by the Minister on 17 May 2012 in which she tried to clarify what was meant by that. After the phrase which I have cited, she said:

“The legislation does indeed refer to ‘caste’ in general, not to any specific caste. Its coverage would therefore be significantly wider than simply an alleged discrimination against the people of the Dalit communities by other, higher-caste Hindus and Sikhs. Against this background, I do not feel it is helpful to partition the debate into ‘victim’ and ‘perpetrator’ communities or to read such meanings into the phrase ‘those communities potentially most affected’”.

Very briefly, there are two points to be made here. First, however widely this might be interpreted, we cannot get away from the fact that there are victims and people who are perpetuating this discrimination. That is a fact. Secondly, even if it does extend more widely, if that discrimination on the grounds of caste, by whatever caste or whatever other caste, offends what is in the 2010 Act—issues of education and the public provision of goods and services—it must still be made illegal. Indeed, it could be interpreted more widely, but if discrimination occurs against another kind of low caste, in Indian terms, rather than the Dalits, we surely ought to try to stop it. I find the answers in those letters increasingly unsatisfactory.

Finally, there is widespread support from other communities. The Equalities and Human Rights Commission has made it clear that it supports the amendment. There is strong support from all the UN bodies. I will not cite them because of shortage of time. We have to set this against the worldwide background. My view is that the discrimination against Dalits is an even worse evil than the worst excesses of apartheid. It is even more humiliating in some ways and it is occurring on a much wider scale. There are 270 million Dalit people in the world. We know that in this country there are 200,000. We have to set it against that kind of background. Therefore, it is desperately important that we include in our law in this country, and make it quite clear, that discrimination on the grounds of caste is totally unacceptable. That is the view of the whole range of Dalit organisations in this country.

I very much hope that the Government will be able to claim the credit of accepting the amendment which we are putting forward today.

[Lord Avebury]

I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, for her sterling work in getting Section 9(5)(a) on the statute book. In 2010, I moved the amendment with the full support of the Government after a meeting attended by large numbers of people representing the anti-discrimination organisations up and down the country and at which the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, was present. I think that she was suitably impressed by the unanimity of the views expressed at that meeting.

I should also like to pay tribute to the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, for his sterling work as chair of the All-Party Group for Dalits and for the support that he has always given to the promotion of this provision in the Equality Act. I have worked out that it is nearly three years since the House agreed to insert that provision into the Equality Act, giving the Government the power to add caste to the list of protected characteristics. The Anti Caste Discrimination Alliance had presented evidence that caste discrimination existed in the UK, and the Dalit organisations represented by the ACDA and CasteWatchUK had unanimously requested Parliament to act on the matter. Giving the Government this power was a first step, followed rapidly by, as we have heard, the commissioning of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research study, to confirm what the ACDA had already discovered. The results were published on 16 December 2010 and indeed it found the required evidence, although I am sorry to say that the study was a fairly perfunctory exercise. Even so, it produced the required evidence of discrimination.

When the Government were first asked for their reaction to the NIESR report, they were cautious, but immediately indicated that the coalition was looking for ways of avoiding the issue. They said that this was a different Government from the one that had commissioned the NIESR study and that it had to be considered in the context of their own equality strategy. They needed to consider whether activating Section 9(5)(a) would be “reasonable and proportionate”—words that are repeated in most of the Government’s pro forma statements since then—bearing in mind that a lot of people would be affected by it.

Of course, if there is a great deal of caste discrimination, a lot of people would be affected, but we had understood previously that there were doubts about the existence of discrimination. Now there was at least tacit acknowledgement that this “abhorrent practice”, as the Government called it, was occurring here. But the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, seemed to have already made up her mind that legislation would not deal with the issues behind it. Equally, one could say that legislation did not stamp out the societal roots of racism, misogyny or homophobia. However, it was the main tool for dealing with the overt manifestations of prejudice and a powerful signal of society’s disapproval of the underlying ingrained attitudes of hatred and prejudice against the other.

Having acknowledged that caste discrimination exists, it would be grossly illogical to forgo the use of a weapon against it that is proving effective in the case of all the other protected characteristics in the Equality Act; that is, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, and sex and sexual orientation. I suggest that there would have to be some reason of principle as to why caste should be treated differently from all those other characteristics. Of course, there is none. We have to analyse the statements of Ministers both verbally and in writing to see what the Government’s real motives are.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I understand the point that my noble friend makes, but it takes us back to the point about evidence. I refer again to the NIESR research, which suggests that some caste discrimination and harassment may exist but also says that,

“it is impossible to categorically determine whether caste discrimination and harassment within the meaning of the Act has occurred”.

[Lord Avebury]

I am so sorry to interrupt the Minister again; I know that she has been very patient. However, if the argument is that you do not deal with this problem because very small numbers of people are discriminated against on the grounds of caste, what does she have to say about gender reassignment, which is one of the protected characteristics? Should we have avoided placing gender reassignment on the list of protected characteristics because not many people are affected by it?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

In simple terms, the protected characteristics are characteristics that we all share; we all have a sex, a race and an age. I think the point in dispute was debated on previous legislation.

I will conclude by saying that we have thought long and hard about this legislative power and about why making this change in a Bill designed to encourage enterprise and streamline regulation would be inappropriate. However, I am very happy to accept the noble Baroness’s proposal of a meeting. We also acknowledge that uncertainty as to what is to happen on the issue of caste discrimination in Great Britain helps no one.

My noble friend made reference to the letter that he received from my right honourable friend Maria Miller and her reference to the fact that we expect to be able to make a fuller announcement on the Government’s intentions on this matter shortly. I certainly will do all in my power to ensure that, as far as is possible, we do so before we get to the next stage of this Bill.

Child Poverty

Lord Avebury Excerpts

Tuesday 26th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, there is a lot of debate about how to measure poverty. I believe that relative income measures have an important place, as do absolute measures, but it is quite true that we need to have strategies that go to the fundamentals that create poverty rather than worrying about trying to ameliorate those by income transfers. It is more important to have a balanced strategy.

[Lord Avebury]

My Lords, why do the Government refuse to extend the pupil premium to Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children who are the worst achievers in all sectors of education, whether measured by achievement, attendance or exclusions? Surely that group qualifies as being the most deprived of all in our schools.

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I will pass that view on to the Department of Education.

Welfare Reform Bill

Lord Avebury Excerpts

Tuesday 14th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morgan of Drefelin]

My Lords, I support the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and in so doing I remind the House of my interest as chief executive of Breast Cancer Campaign. In particular I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Patel, on pursuing his amendment and on articulating so clearly the concerns of cancer patients. I also congratulate Macmillan on the work that it has been doing very determinedly to raise these important issues on behalf of cancer patients, and I thank the Minister for listening and for being very careful in his response, as I am sure he will be.

I do not want to repeat the arguments that have already been made in this House on Report, but I would like to be very clear that I believe this House has made its intention very clear—with an alternative amendment—on the need to provide cancer patients with the security of having treatment without the pressure of potentially losing their benefit added to it, an issue that I suggested here today and that I would like to hear from the Minister on.

I would specifically welcome hearing from the Minister about the position of cancer patients who, by April 2012, will have been in the work-related activity group for 12 months. Will he clarify for us, in the light of his new thinking, whether this group of patients will no longer be eligible to receive contributory ESA? I know that the Government are consulting, and I understand that the Minister will not want to pre-empt the outcome of that consultation, but it would be very helpful for those who have received notice that their benefit will come to an end after 12 months to know, as cancer patients, what their position might be.

[Lord Avebury]

My Lords, perhaps I may intervene briefly and question the noble Lord, Lord Patel, about the breadth of his amendment. He spoke about those people who are receiving treatment for cancer and described vividly the ordeals that they go through when receiving chemotherapy. Of course, we all have knowledge of that kind of treatment, not from personal experience but from our relatives and friends who have been through those procedures. But not every cancer patient has to be given chemotherapy or radiotherapy. Some cancers can be treated with medication. I was speaking particularly about myeloproliferative disorders, which can be treated in the early stages with medication.

The wording of the amendment as regards “receiving treatment” is too broad and should be confined, for example, to those receiving chemotherapy or radiotherapy. In that way, the provision would be limited to those people who are so physically affected by the treatment that they are receiving that they would be incapable of working or unlikely to be capable of working until that treatment ceases.

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, it is true that some cancer patients may not need any treatment after surgery. But many others need therapy and my amendment refers particularly to those who cannot work because of their treatment or their suffering from the effects of the treatment. My key point is that those people want to work. As Jenni Russell said in her article, they are not skiving. They want to work. If the amendment is defective in that area, the purpose is not.