Extreme Poverty and Human Rights: United Nations Report
Lord Bishop of Oxford Excerpts(4 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Buscombe
My Lords, we have done an enormous amount to tackle poverty since we came into government. We have invested huge sums of additional money into developing a welfare system that encourages people into work and supports them in work and with progression in their jobs, so that they can better provide, because we know that the best way to get out of poverty and save children from it is to work. As the IFS said today:
“Absolute poverty remains at its lowest ever level”.
Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB)
Will the Minister comment specifically on Wales? The report says:
“Wales faces the highest relative poverty rate in the United Kingdom, with almost one in four people living in relative income poverty. Twenty-five per cent of jobs pay below minimum wage”.
Baroness Buscombe
My Lords, we are tackling poverty across the country. I refer noble Lords to the leader article in the Times of 25 May:
“The failings of Mr Alston’s report are legion … it is padded out with such accusations as that the government evinces a ‘punitive, mean-spirited and often callous approach’”.
This is the Times. It said, “This is nonsense”. It goes on:
“yet poverty in this sense does not exist in Britain in the 21st century”.
We are responding to reports with care but, in all seriousness, we must say that many things in this report are exaggerated and inflammatory.
Atheists and Humanists: Contribution to Society
Lord Bishop of Oxford Excerpts(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Harries of Pentregarth
My Lords, I, too, am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, for an opportunity to speak in this debate and I put my name down to speak in an entirely positive manner. I believe that we should recognise and rejoice in what is good, wherever it comes from. I warmly welcome the contribution that humanists have made to our society. In its modern sense, I take it that the word humanism refers to a set of values focused on the well-being and flourishing of human beings without recourse to any kind of metaphysical foundation or goal. Humanists may be atheist or agnostic but their value system stands on its own. This is best described as secular humanism, which I take is what we are focused on in this debate. It can be distinguished from Christian humanism, which is grounded in a religious world view, although it shares many of the values of secular humanism.
The distinctive contribution of secular humanism to our society since the 19th century can, in general terms, be summed up in one sentence: it has opposed religious dogmatism when that dogmatism was seen to be blocking progressive social changes that we now all take for granted. Humanists can be found supporting all the great causes of the past 200 years from the anti-slavery movement to votes for women, as often as not working alongside Christians. So I warmly welcome that contribution. However, I have two questions to ask, which I do so as genuine questions, not in a polemical spirit. First, where do the values of secular humanism come from? Secondly, what is going to sustain them in the future?
The Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor’s massive book, A Secular Age, addresses the first question. He argues against all “subtraction stories”, as he calls them, according to which modernity sees itself as having sloughed off or liberated itself from certain limiting beliefs. Instead, he argues that what we mean by a secular age, in which for the first time a self-sufficient humanism has become a widely available option, is the product of a long historical development which he traces back to the medieval age when new religious orders were founded specifically to live and work in cities. He continues the story through the Reformation, with its emphasis on the value of the lay vocation and lay work, and the development of secular life through to our own times. In short, what we value today in a secular humanist view of the world is an achievement brought about by a long process of predominantly Christian history. Secular humanist values did not simply come from nowhere.
The noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, mentioned George Eliot and Thomas Hardy, two novelists I hugely admire. George Eliot probably had a greater range of depth and sympathy than any other writer in the English language, yet until well into adult life, both were deeply devout and serious Christians. They lost their Christian faith but they kept their Christian values, or they kept values which they no longer regarded as specifically Christian. However, those values had been formed by some process. I make this point not to take any particular credit for the Christian church, whose record is of course mixed, but in order to sharpen up my next question: if these values are the product of a long, substantially Christian history, what will sustain them into the future? The Nobel prize-winning poet, Seamus Heaney, has said that, “Some kind of metaphysics has disappeared from the common life. I think we are running on an unconscious that is informed by religious values, but I think my youngster’s youngsters won’t have that”. If that is true, what can create, inspire, sustain and strengthen a durable moral consensus into the future? It is a genuine question to which for so many there is no clear or obvious answer, so it was very good in particular to hear the noble Lord, Lord Layard, address it directly with a degree of urgency and seriousness.
This leads on to my final point. Michael Sandel, the Harvard professor and Reith lecturer, has argued that for 30 years or more, our society has been dominated by a combination of social and market liberalism. In short, the value of free choice has been allowed to override and ignore all other values. In a series of brilliant examples, he shows that this is unsustainable and that our deepest instincts want a much thicker, richer set of values, for our public and our private lives. Our society is lacking a substantial and widely shared moral vision. I believe that secular humanists and Christian humanists could be allies in the task of moving our society away from the rampant individualism that now dominates our life. Of course there will be disagreements when it comes to spelling out in detail what that wider set of values consists of and what their policy implications should be—there will probably be some disagreement over the assisted dying Bill—but such is the need of society for something better than we have now, those disagreements are worth facing and working through.
So I warmly welcome the contribution that secular humanism has made to our society, but in no polemical spirit I will ask this: what is going to sustain, nurture and strengthen its values in the years ahead? Finally, I note the need for a much wider, deeper and richer ethical framework for our society than the current relentless emphasis on free choice provides. I suggest that this is a challenge that secular humanists and Christian humanists might do well to try to meet together.
Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill
Lord Bishop of Oxford Excerpts(10 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Harries of Pentregarth
My Lords, I understand very well the unease that many of your Lordships feel about this Bill. I was brought up in a world where homosexuality was whispered about in dark corners and any hint of its expression resulted in expulsion. Our understanding of homosexuality is undoubtedly the biggest social change of my lifetime.
My own change and understanding came about when I realised—for example, through reading the biographies of gay people—that often, from a very early age, they had found themselves predominantly attracted to members of their own sex, not just physically but as whole persons. While some people are bisexual and there is a degree of fluidity in the sexuality of others, we know that for a significant minority their sexuality is not a matter of choice but as fundamental to their identity as being male or female. That is a fact that must bring about a decisive shift in our understanding.
The question arises as to how the church and society should respond to this. Both have an interest in helping people live stable lives in committed relationships. For this reason, many of us warmly welcome civil partnerships, not just because of the legal protections that they rightly afford to those who enter into them but because they offer the opportunity for people to commit themselves to one another publicly. Personally, I take a high view of civil partnerships. The idea of a lifelong partnership is a beautiful one. I deeply regret that the Church of England has not yet found a way of publicly affirming civil partnerships in a Christian context. I wish that it had warmly welcomed them from the first and provided a liturgical service in which the couple could commit themselves to one another before God and ask for God’s blessing upon their life together. If only the church had made it clear that although these relationships might be different in some respects from the union of a man and woman, they are equally valid in the eyes of the church and, more importantly, in the eyes of God.
Sadly, too many who now say that they accept civil partnerships have done so only slowly, reluctantly and through gritted teeth. Today we are not in a situation where civil partnerships are regarded as different but equal to marriage. Rightly or wrongly, the impression is inevitably created that one form of relationship is inferior to the other, and people believe that marriage is a profounder and richer form of relationship than a civil partnership.
Most importantly, many gay and lesbian people believe this and want to enter not just into a civil partnership but a marriage: a lifelong commitment of love and fidelity, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. Marriage affords legal advantages that are denied to civil partnerships, such as their legal status in many countries, but that is not the main point. The point is that those who wish to enter into this most fundamental of human relationships should be able to do so legally. I am aware that this involves a significant change in our understanding of marriage, but marriage has never had a fixed character. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, eloquently pointed out that its legal meaning has changed over the years; and no less significantly, its social meaning has changed.
For most of history, among the upper classes, marriage was primarily a way of controlling titles and wealth. Among all classes, it involved the radical subservience of women. Often it went along with a very lax attitude—by males, not females—to relationships outside marriage. Contraception was forbidden and this resulted in many children, and as often as not the wife dying young. Only in the 18th century did we get a growth in emphasis on the quality of the relationship of the couple. Now, this mutual society, help and comfort that the one ought to have with the other, in prosperity and adversity, is rightly stressed. This is equally valued by all people, whatever their sexuality.
I really do not underestimate the linguistic dissonance set up by this Bill and the consequent unease felt by many but, for those reasons that I have briefly outlined, I warmly welcome it. I believe in marriage. I believe, with the Jewish rabbi of old, that in the love of a couple there dwells the shekinah—the divine presence; or, to put it in Christian terms, that which reflects the mutual love of Christ and his church. I believe in the institution of marriage and I want it to be available to same-sex couples as well as to males and females.
Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill
Lord Bishop of Oxford Excerpts(11 years ago)
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Baroness Stowell of Beeston
My Lords, this House has debated caste and caste discrimination at each stage of this Bill since Grand Committee. I pay particular tribute to the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, and my noble friends Lord Avebury and Lord Deben, for their important, impassioned and at times moving contributions to these debates. I also acknowledge many other noble Lords who spoke in heartfelt and well informed ways, many for but some against the different amendments relating to caste discrimination being incorporated into the Equality Act 2010.
Earlier this week we considered this issue again in some detail, and this House repeated its view that caste should be directly included in the Equality Act 2010 as an aspect of race. The Government have always said that we are against any form of caste prejudice or discrimination. What has been at issue is how best to tackle any such prejudice and discrimination that may occur.
We have listened carefully to what this House has said, and we acknowledge the strength of opinion that has been expressed. While I need to record that we remain unconvinced that the evidence shows that legislation is the right way to resolve problems associated with caste prejudice or discrimination, we none the less accept the need to resolve this matter. We have therefore made the commitment, after full and extensive consultation, to legislate. Noble Lords will recognise that this is the essential difference compared with our earlier proposals.
The amendment that was last debated in this House would have seen caste directly become an aspect of race for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010. Instead, we propose an alternative form, which was originally proposed as an amendment in this House in Grand Committee. Under this amendment in lieu, what is currently a discretionary power in the Equality Act to add caste to the list of race characteristics will become a duty on the Secretary of State. This amendment still gives effect to the need to legislate, while giving us greater flexibility to pick up the key issue of public consultation, which I believe the House recognises to be necessary and useful.
There are important issues on which we need to consult widely. The first concerns the definition of caste in the Act and any associated exceptions. Second is the issue of non-legislative concerns, some of which were highlighted by the Opposition in the other place and raised in this House, for example the guidance needed by business or by courts and tribunals, or the vexed question of caste identification and monitoring. Finally, there are wider issues to do with caste, such as gathering the right evidence that may be needed for the eventual statutory reviews, to which I shall come in more detail in a moment.
The secondary legislative approach, which the Government are proposing today and which I think was supported by a number of speakers, gives us better assurance that we get the legislation right, as well as greater flexibility on its timing. I should add that we intend to continue with our Talk for a Change education programme in relevant communities, which we continue to see as having an important role in effecting cultural change over time. We also wish to involve and work closely with the Equality and Human Rights Commission on broader issues of caste and caste-related discrimination.
Noble Lords will also see that there is a further element in the Motion. We have provided for the possibility of a review of the exercise of the caste power and any order made under it. This safeguard is in response to the various concerns raised by parliamentarians of all parties, here and in the other place. It looks beyond any immediate need for caste legislation, and concerns the importance of ensuring that legislation does not inadvertently embed in British society the concept of caste, together with those aspects of it that are inappropriate to the modern world.
We see no place for caste in today’s Britain, and we want caste distinctions to disappear over time. This power gives us the opportunity to review the ongoing need for such legislation to remain, together with a means for its removal should it no longer be considered appropriate. As I have already said this evening, the Government have listened carefully. We are committing to legislate after we have carried out the consultation which this House has recognised to be necessary, before we exercise the power to make caste an aspect of race in the Equality Act 2010. We are also putting in place the option to review that legislation after it has been enacted. I trust that noble Lords will accept these proposals, one of which mirrors an earlier proposal put forward in this House. The other picks up on a suggestion put forward by the Opposition, among others. I beg to move.
Lord Harries of Pentregarth
My Lords, I would like to express our deep appreciation to the Government for listening to the concerns of communities that are most affected by caste discrimination, and thank the Minister in particular for the seriousness with which she has taken this issue and the commitment that she has given it. As she said, the vital change has taken place. The word “may” has been changed to the word “must”. This will be part of primary legislation. There is agreement all around the House and in the other place that a period of consultation is necessary, both with those who are firmly in favour of the legislation and those who are against. There is absolutely no disagreement on that, and it is inevitable that there should be a period of time before the Act comes into force. Together with the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, I will seek a meeting with the Minister in the other place to talk with her about this consultation, in particular to get some sort of feel of the timescale before the Bill is enacted. I reiterate the thanks of the communities most affected by caste discrimination for the way in which the Government have listened seriously and responded to their concerns.
Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill
Lord Bishop of Oxford Excerpts(11 years ago)
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Lord Harries of Pentregarth
I thank the Minister again for the great care, thought and seriousness with which she has addressed this issue this evening and on other occasions, and the way in which the Government have clearly moved quite a long way in the direction of the supporters of the amendment. I thank all noble Lords for what they have contributed. I also pay tribute to those outside this House who believe that they are discriminated against, who have ensured that we have had this serious debate this evening.
In his thoughtful speech, the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, said that the issue of caste was so wide that ill founded complaints of discrimination would arise. He gave the example of himself from a goldsmith background perhaps not employing somebody from a blacksmith background and this being the subject of a complaint. But I cannot see that this would be essentially different from other areas of discrimination; for instance, a woman might complain that she is discriminated against because she is a woman and a tribunal would have to make up its mind whether it was because she was a woman or she simply was not up to the job. The situation is absolutely no different. The noble Lord then said that caste is such a wide concept that it really cannot be included in legislation at all. What about the example of India, which includes in its constitution the fact that caste discrimination is totally contrary to the legal system?
The noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, suggested that people in the third and fourth generations are not aware of their caste and, as it were, have outgrown it. I have to point out that that is not the evidence that the NIESR found. It found that there was bullying going on in school playgrounds on the basis of caste. The noble Baroness, Lady Flather, also mentioned coming across it when she was a teacher—sadly, it has not gone.
The noble Lord, Lord Gummer, rightly pointed out that even if there were only a few cases of discrimination, those people must be protected by law. What the noble Lord, Lord Gummer, said highlights the fundamental issue tonight.
Lord Harries of Pentregarth
I am sorry—we are old friends; we know each other from previous incarnations and go back to 1958, when I remember him this high. I apologise: what the noble Lord, Lord Deben, said highlights the fundamental issue of the kind of consultation that people have in mind.
The Government have in mind a wide-ranging consultation to decide whether legislation is necessary. Many of us are convinced that it is and that the consultation needed should be more sharply focused to ensure that the actual regulation that goes with it reflects what the communities most affected by it believe will be clear and workable in law. There is a clear difference between the kind of consultation that we have in mind and that the Government have in mind. We believe that it is important at this date to make it quite clear that legislation is necessary to protect people.
We have had such a serious debate tonight and the issues have been so thoroughly debated that I feel that it is right that the opinion of this House should be tested.
Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill
Lord Bishop of Oxford Excerpts(11 years, 2 months ago)
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“Equality Act 2010: caste discrimination
(1) The Equality Act 2010 is amended as follows.
(2) After section 9(1)(c) (race) insert—
“(d) caste;”.”
Lord Harries of Pentregarth
My Lords, this amendment seeks to add the word “caste” into the Equality Act 2010 and I will very briefly sketch in its background. The Dalit communities in this country, which are about 480,000 strong, have been concerned for some time about discrimination against them. The previous Government, aware of this, introduced an order-making power into the Equality Act 2010 and to assess the evidence commissioned a report from the National Institute for Economic and Social Research. The NIESR concluded that there was discrimination in the areas covered by the Equality Act; namely, education, employment and the provision of public goods and services. It recommended legislation as one of the ways of dealing with this.
The present Government, understandably, wanted time to consider this issue but on Friday gave their response. They recommended that discrimination be tackled by education first rather than by triggering the order-making power in the Act. The Dalit communities in this country are deeply disappointed by this long-awaited response. Indeed, there are more than 400 community leaders from all over the country expressing their feelings outside the House at the moment. I find it disappointing and genuinely distressing because not only are the recommendations a distraction from the real issue but they could cause a great deal of hard feeling and resentment and be seriously counterproductive.
I want to explain briefly why I believe this to be so. It is natural in every society for people to mix with other like-minded people—those with the same education, background, religion, class or occupation. If sometimes this goes along with feelings of superiority to other groups this is reprehensible but when it is manifested only in social life it is not a matter for legislation. By focusing on education there is a huge danger that these kinds of social distinction will become blurred and confused with the real issue of discrimination in the public sphere when people are not employed or are harassed in their jobs because of their caste. An education programme, however sensitive—and frankly one wonders how on earth this one is going to be costed—is likely to be regarded as patronising and interfering, while at the same time distracting from the essential issue.
We hear that there is opposition to triggering the order-making power. I find it very difficult to work out what are the grounds of this opposition. The NIESR is a highly reputable academic body, well used to doing this research, and it has concluded that there is clear evidence of discrimination in the public sphere. Therefore, I wonder about the Government’s second recommendation, which is that the Equality and Human Rights Commission should be asked to look again at the evidence. Is there something flawed with the original evidence? Why is it being asked to look at it again?
Another possible reason is that discrimination does indeed exist, as the Government seem to accept, but should be tolerated. That position would be quite unacceptable to all your Lordships. So we come to the third reason. Is the law really needed? We know that in the case of legislation on race nothing has been more effective in reducing racial prejudice than the law. It has had a most powerful educative effect. Nothing could be more significant and effective in reducing discrimination on the grounds of caste than to have a clear-cut law saying that discrimination in the public sphere will not be tolerated. India, Bangladesh and Nepal all have laws against discrimination on the grounds of caste. The problem in those countries is that the caste system is so deeply entrenched that the laws are not properly enforced. The situation in this country is very different. The law is, on the whole, effective. If other countries see nothing shaming in having a law, why should we?
There are something like 200 million Dalits in the world and the institutionalised prejudice against them is one of the most degrading and humiliating forms of rejection invented by cruel human beings, of which being confined to jobs such as manual scavenging is only one expression. It is indeed a surprise and a shock to learn that caste prejudice has come to this country. It is not, of course, in that extreme form but we need to show that in any public form it is totally unacceptable. We can do that quite simply and clearly by accepting this amendment.
At the moment, when a person believes that they have been discriminated against because of their caste, they have no legal means of redress. Someone I once interviewed had had a good training in India as a medical technician and was employed by the NHS in this country. All went well until this person asked their Asian boss for leave to go back to India for a family wedding. There then followed a set of highly intrusive questions about their family background, after which the person’s life was made hell for the next year, which nearly brought on a breakdown. The trade union that he consulted thought that he had certainly been the subject of unfair discrimination and harassment, but had to advise him that at the moment it was not possible to bring a case for discrimination on the grounds of caste.
Even if there are likely to be few such cases, it is essential that there should be a proper means of legal address for those that exist. I appreciate that the Government are serious in wanting to do something about caste discrimination but I honestly believe, for the reason I have given, that their education programme could turn out to be highly counterproductive. No less importantly, it will blur the issue and distract attention from what is really needed: a clear legal signal that discrimination in this country in the public sphere—in education, employment and the provision of public goods and services—is quite unacceptable. I beg to move.
Lord Harries of Pentregarth
First, I thank very much all those who have spoken in support of this amendment for their deeply felt speeches. I also thank the Minister for the serious consideration which she has given to this, and for her obviously sincere commitment to the elimination of caste discrimination. I also thank the Minister in the other place, Helen Grant; the Dalit organisations found the meeting with her very helpful.
However, there is a clear division of opinion in this House between those who believe very passionately that it is essential to have a clear law in place at this stage, and those, like the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, who are with the Government in believing that what is needed is an educational programme. All I ask the noble Lord is whether he would have taken that view when race relations legislation was first being introduced. I suspect he would not have; he would have argued for the importance of a clear law.
The Minister mentioned rightly that a number of the more horrible cases mentioned in our speeches concerned what is happening in India, rather than here. That is true, and this issue needs to be seen against that wider background. None the less, I myself gave a very clear example of employment discrimination in this country, and we can provide the Minister with a whole range of cases in this country, as the report sets out.
The Minister suggested that many of the cases mentioned in that study would not be covered by legislation. That is indeed true. However, a number clearly would, and that is surely the key point. At the moment, people have no legal address, and it is absolutely fundamental to all aspects of the law in this country that people have such address where they feel that they are being discriminated against. While I in no way doubt the sincerity of the Minister and the Government on this issue, there is a clear division of opinion in this House about the necessity of a clear law at this stage. I therefore wish to test the opinion of the House.
Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill
Lord Bishop of Oxford Excerpts(11 years, 4 months ago)
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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.
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.
Lord Harries of Pentregarth
The Minister has quoted a couple of times from the report to the effect that it was not clear that this particular form of harassment was carried out on grounds of caste. If she looks at the report, I think she will see that that refers to something quite specific and in no way undermines the overall conclusion that there is clear evidence of discrimination on the grounds of caste. I think she will find that that uncertainty about caste refers to a particular kind of harassment. It does not undermine the main findings. In the light of her reply, I wish to go back to the evidence that I gave just now about my personal interview with someone who clearly had been discriminated against on grounds of caste. When they went to their union adviser, while they were very sympathetic, the union adviser said that a case could not be taken on the grounds of caste because it was not in the law. Will the Minister suggest on what grounds that person should therefore go to law if there is no law at the moment which applies to a person’s being discriminated against?
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
Without the full facts of the case, I am afraid that it is not possible for me to respond to an individual case in that way. The best I can do is, as I have indicated, to say that I am very happy to have a meeting to discuss matters further outside the Committee. However, I know that it is important that we now draw the debate today to a close.
Equal Marriage Consultation
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Lord Harries of Pentregarth
Is the Minister aware that, notwithstanding the official position of the Church of England on this, a good number of its members warmly welcome the Government’s position on this? Is she aware that privately, a fair number of individual bishops in the Church of England also support it, but are not able to say so publicly at the moment because of the political situation in which the Church of England now finds itself?
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
I am grateful to the noble and right reverend Lord for making those points. I obviously note them, but I leave it to the church to comment on its own position on this matter.