Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill

Baroness Hollins Excerpts

Wednesday 9th January 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Greengross]

My Lords, I appreciate the passion and commitment that my noble friend Lady Campbell brought to this amendment and I share her absolute commitment to the aims and objectives of the commission. I have just finished a six-year stint as a commissioner. I was there from the beginning, when the noble Baroness was a co-commissioner with me.

The commission’s aims are beyond dispute and I support them completely, but I share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Lester, that removing Section 3 is not of any great significance. There are things that are much more important in ensuring that the commission’s work will continue, improve and be clearer in the future. I do not think that the section does any harm, but I also do not think that it is terribly important if it goes.

A sad thing is the overriding view that seems to be around now, perhaps in government and perhaps everywhere else, that the commission has failed. I challenge that, as I think that the commission has done some excellent work during the six years that I have been there, in spite of enormous difficulties in trying to meld a whole lot of additional categories of people to be protected, as well as the original protected groups, with the people representing those groups feeling that they were going to be in some way diluted. That has made life very difficult in the commission, but I think that many of those difficulties have been overcome.

Society as a whole still has huge problems—I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Ouseley, about that. We still have racism and there is still a stigma attached to disability and so on. However, there have been major achievements in the recognition of that, in the ability to speak about it and in the protection of many people who were not protected before. There have been a lot of improvements. The work of the commission should not always be criticised as vague and not achieving anything, as there have been some significant achievements. I say that on behalf of colleagues and former colleagues who have done the majority of that work, which I think needs to be recognised.

The fact that the Joint Committee on Human Rights will in future scrutinise the commission’s business plan and there will be increased parliamentary involvement—for example, the pre-appointment scrutiny of the new chair—is a big improvement. We have been looking at all the things that still need to be done as if everything is totally negative, but having experienced six years of the commission I think that quite a lot has been very positive, including greater transparency about the Government’s funding decisions.

It will be sad if the general duty goes, as removing it is not a huge priority, but I do not think that it will affect the work of the commission. To that extent, I do not think that the Government have to worry too much. We have to work hard to ensure that the commission’s aims are met in the future. More specific duties and responsibilities ought to be useful in improving the situation and making sure that the aims are met. I am sorry if I am in a minority here, but I am passionate about what the commission stands for and I want to acknowledge some of the good things that have happened in the six years during which I have been involved in its work.

[Baroness Hollins]

My Lords, despite the legal view presented by the noble Lord, Lord Lester, I refer us back to some of the words spoken by my noble friend Lady Campbell of Surbiton. She said that the inclusion of dignity in the commission's general duty provides the glue to bind together anti-discrimination and human rights. I think I got that right. I agree with that and other important points that she made in her eloquent speech. Such an approach underpins the accepted goal of living with dignity and independence. As such, Section 3 is critical in providing coherence to the commission’s duties to promote equality and human rights. I was involved with one of the commission’s predecessor organisations, the Disability Rights Commission, in a major inquiry conducted into discrimination in access to health services by people with learning disabilities or mental illness. It indeed found discrimination; it was very effective and led to some improvements in access to healthcare for those groups. It is very important that such issues continue to be seen as a priority and investigated.

I worry that, without Section 3, that priority may be lost. I oppose the removal of Section 3. It has an important role in focusing the commission’s various duties, and I add my support to the amendments tabled by my noble friend.

[Baroness Prosser]

My Lords, I did not intend to speak in this debate, but I have been fired up by comments made. I start by declaring an interest as having spent six years, until the beginning of December 2012, as the deputy chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. I shall be brief. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Lester, and the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, are not alone in considering that the loss of the section would not cause any harm. Obviously, I respect the right of people to hold a different view, but I make the point that there is a long history in legislative terms of overarching statements of intent being extremely useful to judges and others when determining the meaning of legislation—so, even on that level, it has a value. I run with my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Low, especially in his comments that this has a symbolic value. In this country, we are far from being able to consider that there is no further need for symbols, promotion, ideas, excitement or energy about the equality agenda. We are lacking that in great amount at the moment. We need to be as positive as we can about the need for an equality programme within our society. We continue to need to encourage and explain to people the value to society as a whole of the equality agenda.

Finally, having been deputy chair for six years, it is unsurprising that I take exception to some of the comments made about the equality commission, many of which seem to me to be based on myth upon myth. I agree that there have been issues and problems far too complicated and outside the remit of the equality commission to go into here. Equally, I would say that there is a tendency on the part of many to look back at the pre-Equality and Human Rights Commission era and look at the previous commissions through rose-coloured glasses. People involved in each of the three commissions have done that. This has not been a steady or an easy path since the 1960s, when legislation was first introduced to try to address some of these issues. We need to be careful about making comments about the role of the EHRC in recent years without making sure that we are really clear about the issues, why they have arisen and what has been done to try to detract from them. I support this amendment because it is part of a programme of encouragement of a society becoming more equal, understanding and tolerant.