Independent Cultural Review of London Fire Brigade

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The simple answer to my noble friend is that I am afraid I do not know but I will endeavour to find out.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)]

My Lords, I start briefly by saying to the Whips that when we have an Urgent Question, we cannot entertain speeches, because several of us would like to contribute—I say that very respectfully. I declare that I am chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and I just have a simple point that I would like the Minister to emphasise. The noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, rightly spoke of a spread of incidents across different public sector organisations where things have gone appallingly wrong. Will the noble Lord consider that all the organisations that have been mentioned today are covered by the public sector equality duty, which they are required in law to have due regard to? What is his assessment of why they have disregarded that duty?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I am not sure that it is the organisations that have disregarded the duty, but clearly, individuals within them have. Obviously, that is part of a larger discussion, and I will take that suggestion back.