Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill

John Redwood Excerpts

Tuesday 16th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Umunna]

I am proud to be associated with a party that was responsible for setting up many of the predecessor bodies of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Let me be absolutely clear: we thoroughly support this organisation. It is incredibly important, not only in taking an anti-discrimination stance towards some of the things that unfortunately happen in our society, but in being proactive in promoting that. I have just returned from a visit to Israel, where I learned more about the situation there. I met the Israeli and Palestinian Governments, and one of the things that I felt so proud of was the fact that an equalities commission was recently created in Israel. We know that society there has major challenges in that respect, but that commission is being modelled on ours. I think that says something about the body we have in this country.

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I would be grateful if the Opposition addressed the proposals that we are meant to be debating. The Government are not saying, “Just strip it all away”; they are proposing equal pay audits and other mechanisms. It would be useful to know what the Opposition think about them.

[Mr Umunna]

I have just addressed each point about the commission that the Minister raised in her speech. I understand the right hon. Gentleman’s impatience; I shall turn to the other points now.

Let me turn to the Government’s new clauses. Last week the Government tabled new clause 12, which provides for the repeal of the provisions in the Equality Act 2010 relating to employer’s liability for third-party harassment of employees. That, of course, was a key recommendation in the infamous report of the Prime Minister’s employment law adviser Adrian Beecroft. To find the reason for the original introduction of those measures—I am basing my remarks on my legal practice and study: I was an employment lawyer before being elected—we have to return to the mid-1990s. In 1994, there was a well-known case in which two black hotel waitresses were made to serve drinks in Manchester during a performance by the notorious late comedian Bernard Manning. They were subjected to racially and sexually abusive remarks by Manning, and they took their employers to a tribunal. They should never have been put in that situation, and they issued proceedings and won the tribunal. After that case, however, case law was uncertain—I can say that, having dealt with the case law that existed before the Equality Act 2010 came into force. Through section 40 of that Act, which the Government are partly repealing, we legislated to put protection against such third-party harassment on to a firm footing and cover all types of unlawful discrimination.