Equality (Amendment and Revocation) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018

Baroness Hussein-Ece Excerpts

Tuesday 29th January 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Deben (Con)]

Will my noble friend help me by kindly explaining what is meant by paragraph 3.10 in Part 2 of the Explanatory Memorandum, because I have read it carefully and I do not understand it?

I am concerned that although the Government have made all these promises about maintaining our standards, in the substantive legislation we have had in front of us, none of these things have been entrenched. I point in particular to the Trade Bill, where there is nothing to say that we will insist in future on having trading arrangements only with countries that maintain the same standards that we have. This is marginal in cost terms, but very important in principle. In the European Union, we have common views and our trading is done under common standards. That will not be true in future. Therefore, when we have substantive legislation, I am looking for the Government to entrench those standards so that they are taken into account in the trading negotiations. At the moment, they are not taken into account and Parliament is excluded from any discussion of the trading deals that will be done, whereas we are not excluded—at least, the European Parliament is not—when it comes to European trading deals.

If my noble friend cannot answer that question now, I hope she will explain why the Government insist on generalised statements but do not include such statements whenever they can be justiciably insisted on. I like it when the Government’s feet can be held to the fire, not when a particular Prime Minister has made a generalised promise. I have no doubt that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister has every intention of carrying through what she says, but she will not be Prime Minister for ever—I think that is an uncontroversial statement. I should like a commitment from the Government that in all the substantive legislation they bring forward, they will insist on having the same attitude towards the issues we have discussed today: civil partnership, gender recognition, sexual discrimination and the like.

That is particularly important when it comes to some parts of industry. I know that people say that it really does not matter very much. It certainly matters to our standards on agriculture. In some countries that we propose to have agreements with, there are no standards of this sort. They are able to do things we would not, which reduces their costs and enables them to compete unfairly.

I say one other thing to my noble friend. It is very difficult for those of us who have looked at these matters seriously not to be extremely angry that the Government continue to believe it is even possible to contemplate a no-deal exit. The damage done by that would be so serious that the Government make themselves look pretty ridiculous by not standing up and saying, “We will not allow this to happen and therefore we will not put through this legislation”. In any case, they cannot get it all through in time.

When my noble friend replies, she might be kind enough to avoid two phrases that she uses, neither of which help us. The first is, “not be of relevance to us”. The fact is that what the European Union decides in future, if we leave it, will be of relevance to us. It will not be of relevance in the sense that we will have to obey it, but the idea that we will not be affected by the decisions the European Union makes seems to me pretty barmy. This is one of the problems: we are putting ourselves in a position where we will be affected by decisions the European Union makes, even though we will have no say in those decisions, which will not directly be imposed on us. To use a phrase such as, “not be of relevance to us”, is to mistake the situation. What we mean is that, were we to leave the European Union, we have to amend our laws to exclude those bits that refer to the European Union. That is not the same as saying that it is not of relevance to us.

There is another little word that my noble friend used: merely—that this “merely” changes the situation to the new situation. This is not a “mere” change; it is another piece of legislation that makes Britain less able to deal with these matters, less influential and, frankly, less safe. As the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, perfectly properly said, we need real acceptance that if we remove ourselves from the European Union, we do not have the same guarantees of continuing with these standards. Most of us find unacceptable the idea that leaving the European Union is merely a matter of transference.

I hope my noble friend will accept that it is much easier if we just say, “This is an attempt to put our law into a position in which it would not totally collapse were we to leave with no deal”. Let us not use any of these words that diminish or reduce the seriousness of what we are doing—the barminess of the whole process and the fact that, if we were to leave the European Union with no deal, we would not be bothering much about gender recognition but about whether people could be fed and whether we could get things on to the supermarket shelves. This is the problem with our discussion: it is all in fairyland. It is all as if things would just go on and that somehow we could have these little changes at the edges.

This is not my noble friend’s fault. She has not started it and I have no idea what her views about it are—she would, of course, not be able to state them whatever they were. I want her to understand that this is an extremely painful process for any of us who have cared about Britain’s role in the world and in Europe, and Britain’s leadership. Therefore, we have to be very careful if we use the words “merely” or “not be of relevance to us”. I leave it to another time for my noble friend to explain precisely what paragraph 3.10 is, but if she can do that today I would be very pleased.

[Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her introduction to this SI and for setting out the Government’s position. I should like to raise a few points. I speak as someone who has been involved in equalities issues for many decades. I recognise some of the hard-fought rights people in our country now have as a result of the EU and grassroots campaigns from women, people from different minority backgrounds and the LGBT+ community. These have all been hard-fought, as has been said. They were never given; they were fought for.

As the Equality and Human Rights Commission rightly says, the EU has played a pivotal role in ensuring that the underpinning of these rights has been embedded in our laws. For example, EU law has led to changes in UK law to protect equality and human rights, which, let us not forget, includes things such as human trafficking, including greater protections for victims and victims’ rights; disability rights, with huge changes due directly to EU laws, such as improved protections at work and Braille labelling for medicines; workplace discrimination, including protections on grounds of religion or belief, sexual orientation or age; and equal pay. These were all very hard-fought for.

There are concerns. I hear what the noble Baroness said, but these nevertheless have to be addressed. For example, in the event of no deal, which is what we are addressing with the SI, the Government will be looking for other international trade deals. The Government have always been looking to reduce the burden on business and business leaders, who, in some quarters, are always pushing for workers’ rights to be reduced. That is a fact. It might be part of new trade deals. These things have to be addressed and we have to have some answers and reassurances that we will not water down any of our hard-fought equality laws or rights.

For example, a briefing from Liberty states that there will be “serious consequences” for human rights after withdrawal. According to Liberty, the EU withdrawal Bill,

“will not retain the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union”,

and will remove the ability,

“to bring legal claims based on the general principles of EU law”.

I am not a lawyer or an expert, but these things seem quite concerning.

Also, under the same fundamental principles, Liberty says that there are rights that do not have equivalents in our domestic law. For example, Article 3, on bioethics, provides,

“a right to physical and mental integrity, prohibiting eugenic practices, the use of the body and its parts for financial gain and the reproductive cloning of human beings”.

I did not know that until I read that. Another example is Article 14, which provides,

“a right to vocational and continuing training. Unlike its analogue under the ECHR, Article 14 is framed as a positive right—rather than a right not to be denied an education”.

It turns it round in that way. Another example is perhaps pertinent to Members of your Lordships’ House:

“Article 25 (rights of the elderly): recognises the right of older people to lead a life of dignity and independence and participate in social and cultural life. This right is unique and has no equivalent under the ECHR or any justiciable international treaty”.

[Lord Deben]

Is not the fundamental problem that because we have not taken that into our law, there is no justiciable ability of people to take the Government to court? When the Government say, “This is merely moving from European law into British law”, that is not true. It is moving those little bits in detail, but it is not moving the fundamental rights which are enshrined in these very important statutes and which we can refer to in the courts. Now we will not be able to take the Government to court on a full range of these matters, which is a serious diminution in our rights.

[Baroness Hussein-Ece]

The noble Lord advances my case. I was giving a few examples of some of the rights that currently protect different sections of society, but they will not necessarily be protected—and probably will not be—under what is proposed in the SI, which simply harmonises and takes out some of the laws that we currently enjoy and puts them into domestic law. If it is not already something that we recognise, it will not be there. Therefore we need some answers to these issues.

Article 10, which is important and which we discuss a lot in your Lordships’ House, is on freedom of thought, conscience and religion. It,

“includes a right to conscientious objection not recognised in domestic law”.

That is another example of what will not necessarily be harmonised or merely slipped into our domestic laws, because it does not already exist.

The question with the EU withdrawal Act as it stands is: is it not the case that we risk losing protections for sections of society that we have enjoyed for many decades now? An example is the loss of protection for women in work. The noble Baroness, Lady Gale, mentioned gender equality and how we must keep pace on that and not slip back. In addition, as I mentioned earlier, some business leaders see some of these rights as a burden. We need some reassurance from the Government of today, but they may not be the Government of tomorrow, a future Government, so reassurances in themselves will not be enough, because Governments come and go. We need something more fundamental enshrined in our law, which will provide the protections that we do not currently have.

Can the Minister address some of these issues? Another example is that European law has recognised the right of older people to live a dignified and independent life. There is no equivalent of that in the ECHR or a treaty, as I said. While I understand the sentiments the Minister expressed today, we need more than assurances; we need something more cast-iron, and even copper bottomed, which we will probably not get today. That will probably be for another day.

There are a lot of questions and concerns about how we keep pace with issues such as gender equality, race equality measures, LGBT rights and disability rights. Those laws are always evolving to keep pace. The EU has been a positive force for change, enabling us to keep pace and harmonise with those laws. If we are outside the EU, what will be the force for that? Will equality legislation and priorities simply slow down? They may not be a priority any more; other legislation will probably be seen as more of a priority. Quite simply, they could just be weakened and diluted and rights could be lost.

I ask the Minister to address the points that I have made and give more reassurance as to how these issues will be tackled. The UK has proudly played a pivotal role in bringing these protections for protected groups into EU law—we have been at the centre of that, if not the forefront—so how will we ensure that we do not fall behind?

[Lord Smith of Finsbury (Non-Afl)]

Before the noble Baroness sits down, I suggest a very clear example of exactly what she has been talking about. In 1997-98, the only reason why we in this country were able to change the rules on the age of consent for gay male sex was that two brave gay men took the case to the European Court, and the court gave a judgment that meant that not only were we able to change the law here but we had to change it. That is a very good example of exactly the impact, which the noble Baroness is talking about, that it has had over many years.

[Baroness Hussein-Ece]

I was just concluding but I am very grateful to the noble Lord, who I know has himself been pivotal in equality. In fact he was my MP at one time, and I remember that he was in the vanguard of changes in equality legislation.

I have many more examples, which I shall not itemise today, but we are looking for an example like that. There might be something in future involving the rights of people who need protecting. Where do we go for that if the Government of the day are not interested or do not see it as a priority? What will be put in place to ensure that future generations have the same protections that we have enjoyed?

[Baroness Barran]

My Lords, this has been a very constructive and heartfelt debate, and I thank noble Lords for their helpful points regarding both a recognition of the progress made in this country over many years in relation to equalities and the challenges that we face in future. I hope that noble Lords are reassured to some extent by my opening remarks about the nature of the proposed amendments in this specific instrument, as a number of the points raised are obviously broader than its scope. These changes are necessary to ensure a properly functioning statute book after EU exit while not in themselves amounting to substantive changes in policy.

I shall deal with a number of the points raised by noble Lords. The noble Baroness, Lady Gale, asked how we will keep pace with the EU to maintain gender equality specifically, while the noble Baroness, Lady Hussein-Ece, and my noble friend Lord Deben raised broader points in that regard. I reassure all noble Lords that we are committed to keeping all the protections in the Equality Act 2006 and the Equality Act 2010, which include gender equality but also go much broader.

My honourable friend the Minister said last week in the debate on this instrument in the other place that from the date we leave the EU, the UK will be free to set its own priorities, including those on gender equality and women’s rights. The UK has often been in the vanguard of developing new legislation and policies that support women in the workplace, tackling violence against women and girls, and ensuring that women are represented in political and public life. Our recent regulations, for example, requiring employers to publish their gender pay gap go further than anything required by the EU or any other member state. The other area where this country differs in a very positive way from the rest of the EU, is in relation to the public sector equality duty. I hope that noble Lords will reflect on the balance; there are definitely areas where this country is significantly ahead in terms of equality legislation.