Equality and Diversity (Reform) Bill

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Friday 21st October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Nuttall]

I appreciate that my hon. Friend, for reasons that I know not, opposed last week’s motion to allow electronic hand-held devices in the Chamber, but one great advantage of now being allowed such devices is that I was able immediately to follow his advice, go to www.capc.co.uk and access the website of the Campaign Against Political Correctness. On it, there can be found the “Not in my name” section, where Bolaji Alajija, a 42-year-old student nurse from north London, says:

“I don’t see why there is all the fuss. What’s the harm in having a black doll? It’s exactly the same as a white doll. People shouldn’t be so sensitive.”

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I remind Members that, although they are allowed to use iPads, they have to make a speech without continuously reading from them. I am sure Mr Nuttall will take that on board.

[Philip Davies]

I am very grateful for your guidance, Mr Deputy Speaker, particularly as someone who voted against allowing these wretched things to be used in debates. If anyone was ever going to convince me that I made the wrong decision in that vote, however, it is my hon. Friend, who has gone to an excellent website, and I certainly commend him for doing so.

The second part of my Bill tackles the Sex Discrimination (Election Candidates) Act 2002. I was not a Member when the Sex Discrimination (Election Candidates) Bill was debated, but it will come as no surprise to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, to know that had I been I would have definitely opposed it. I have a great deal of time for many of my female Conservative colleagues, we have some extremely able MPs and, for the record, I have excellent female staff. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the greatest Prime Minister this country has ever had was, indeed, a woman, but I do not particularly care if the House is made up of 10% women or 90%. For me, that will never be an issue, so the fundamental premise of the 2002 Act will always be totally flawed.

The most important thing for me is not how many men or women are in Parliament, but how many Conservatives there are in Parliament, and I challenge anybody who is obsessed with the idea that the most important end in itself is that we have more women in Parliament. If, for example, a Conservative male fought a marginal seat against a Labour female, would any of my hon. Friends campaign for her on the basis that it was so important to get more women into Parliament, or would they campaign for him? I venture that they would campaign for him, because I am sure that for all Government Members, apart from of course the Liberal Democrats, it is far more important to have more Conservatives in Parliament than to be worried about how many MPs there are of a particular gender.

During the Bill’s Second Reading on 24 October 2001, almost 10 years ago to the day, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), now the Home Secretary, said:

“I shall be honest with the House. There was a time when I never thought that I would stand up in the Chamber and support such a Bill.”—[Official Report, 24 October 2001; Vol. 373, c. 334.]

I wish she had stuck to her earlier opinion, as it would have been the more Conservative thing to do.

While my right hon. Friend supported the Bill, the former Member for Maidstone and the Weald, Ann Widdecombe, did not. In the debate, she said:

“The Bill is fundamentally wrong. I must ask this question; are all the men in this place sound asleep? Do they realise what the Bill means for them? Have they thought that positive discrimination for women can entail negative discrimination for men?”

The irony is that, as those in the House at the time were already Members, they did not need to worry about candidates, so the Bill was effectively about kicking away the ladder of opportunity from men who had not yet reached the House. I wonder how those Members would have felt if they had been told, “Sorry, I know you would make an excellent MP, but we’re going to stop you applying for the seat that you’ve lived in all your life, because you happen to be a man.” How would any men present today have felt if such a rule had applied to them?

Ann Widdecombe also hit the nail on the head, when during the debate she asked:

“What would that mean for a man in that constituency who had given to his local council the same lifelong service that the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Helen Jackson)—

at the time—

gave to hers”?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr MacShane]

I am following my hon. Friend’s speech with great interest, and I hope that it is only in its initial stages, because the Bill that follows really is a ghastly assault on privilege and fair play.

Is it not a paradox that, even with equality legislation, every single person currently in the Chamber is white, middle-aged and male? That is not the case with those slightly outside the Chamber in the civil servants’ box or the Serjeant at Arms’ seat, but it is—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. This is not relevant. We are dealing with the Bill, and Members should be speaking to the Bill. I am sure the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) does not want to get led all over the place. We have already seen that coming from the Government side, and I certainly do not want to see it coming from the Opposition side.

[Chris Bryant]

Thank you for that advice, Mr Deputy Speaker, although I think the hon. Member for Shipley will be absolutely scandalised to have been described as coming from the Government side.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. I am not sure about being middle-aged, either, but do carry on.

[Chris Bryant]

I think you are middle-aged, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I am pretty much there as well.

The problem that I have with the contention made by the hon. Member for Shipley is that I still think there is a great deal of prejudice in British society. It is complex and arises in all sorts of ways. I have seen in my constituency problems at school for young black kids in a community that is almost entirely white, and sometimes black teachers have had a really rough time because of the kind of language that people use. Language that would no longer be heard in most other parts of the country, where there is a racial mix, is sometimes still used.

I would also point out that the suicide statistics for gay young men in particular are still quite phenomenal. A young gay lad is six times more likely to commit suicide than his heterosexual counterpart, and I would love to see the end of homophobic bullying in schools. It will be very difficult to achieve, because people are not born with a pink triangle on their forehead or whatever—it is something complicated that they have to discover for themselves, and children can be very cruel. Tackling such prejudice will always be one of the important things for Governments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman starts tolerance in the 1960s, because surely John Locke did that in his essay on tolerance. The theme has run through Whiggish behaviour, of which he is symbolic, ever since.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I cannot see anything about tolerance in the Bill. I think we will stick with the Bill.

[Chris Bryant]

There is nothing in the Bill about tolerance. Indeed, one of the main problems with it is that it does not even aspire to tolerance, which is one of the many reasons why I oppose it.

The hon. Member for Shipley said—I am not paraphrasing, but accurately recording what he said—that women and ethnic minorities do not need the rules to be rigged in order to get jobs. He feels that the current legislation is patronising, because women and members of ethnic minorities are perfectly able to get jobs. I am not sure that that is true. In fact, the evidence shows that, all too often, the rules are effectively rigged so that women do not get jobs.

The hon. Gentleman asked whether Labour men who supported all-women shortlists were surrendering themselves and falling on their swords. I merely point out that we are all about to lay down on our swords, because we voted through the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill. I have no idea whether there will be a Rhondda seat or a Greater Rhondda seat, incorporating most of Caerphilly—that was my suggestion. I made no objection to all-women shortlists in the Labour party in 1997. I stood in High Wycombe, which was almost impossible for the party to win, and my election was not anticipated, although the Conservative party so completely destroyed itself in the 1997 election that I very nearly was elected.

All-women shortlists were then rendered illegal by court action. Interestingly, 10 Welsh Labour MPs stood down or retired before the 2001 election, and every single one was replaced by a Welsh Labour male MP—not a single woman was selected in any of those 10 historically safe Labour seats. I rejoiced that I was selected for the Rhondda in 2001, to many people’s surprise, not least my own, but it is none the less important that political parties have the power to retain all-women shortlists.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

I will move on a little if the hon. Gentleman does not mind.

We in the Labour party need to address those issues. Many Government Members criticise Labour’s relationship with the trade unions, but I make absolutely no apology for it. Many of the working class people who have come to the House have done so through the trade union route. They learned in the trade union movement how to do their politics and put their arguments, and they were financially supported so that they could put themselves forward for parliamentary nominations. They were selected on that basis, which is why I wholeheartedly support the relationship between the trade unions and the Labour party.

The hon. Member for Shipley seemed to suggest that there should be absolutely no limits to free speech. I mostly agree with him, and I believe in a free press. I worry sometimes about the direction of the Leveson inquiry. In my work in relation to the News of the World, my intention has never been to dismantle investigative journalism, which is an important part of how we do business and ensure our democratic rights. However, the hatred and the bigotry that some express sometimes goes beyond the pale. I want less hatred to be poured into the pool of hatred that is already out there. Some of the hon. Gentleman’s arguments are similar to those that Ann Widdecombe used when she was in the House. I found that they simply added to the sum total of bigotry rather than diminished it. We should all be striving to diminish it, and I am glad that we have laws that prevent the incitement of not only racial hatred but religious and homophobic hatred. As we have seen over recent years, that legislation has been all the more important in areas where there is a real social mix.

I also believe that Parliament has been immeasurably better for having had more women in it in recent years. I honestly think that were it not for the arrival of so many women some issues would not have been explored and addressed with anything like the seriousness with which they have been. One example is domestic violence. For centuries, a woman was regarded merely as a chattel or another household good for a man to do with as he pleased. Those laws were changed in the middle of the 20th century, but only in recent years did the police and the law start to take domestic violence seriously. I am certain that in my constituency and many others a large proportion of violent crime relates to what happens in people’s households or between domestic partners. I do not believe that the police would have the powers, will or resources to deal with that today had it not been for the arrival of significant numbers of women in Parliament.

I should note that today is the anniversary of the arrival of the first women peers in 1958. There were four of them, and they were a slightly strange lot. One was married to a viceroy, another was the daughter of a viceroy and another was a countess, so it was not exactly equality as we like to see it today. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), also known as the hon. Member for the 15th century and for “Question Time”, obviously likes that, however.

I am glad that the Government are moving forward with the issue of succession so that the prejudice—stemming originally from common law, not statute—that the succession should be subject to male-preference primogeniture should be changed. I also hope that the Government are moving—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. We are drifting well away from the Bill. We enjoy the history lesson, and it is good that a lot of history is coming out today. However, it is certainly not relevant to the Bill; we are certainly drifting way off course. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will bring us back on course.

[Chris Bryant]

I do apologise, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is just that clause 2 is entitled “Definition of ‘affirmative or positive action’”. The Prime Minister is seeking to change the legislation at the meeting of Commonwealth Heads of Government next week and I worry that that could be seen by the hon. Member for Shipley as positive discrimination on the grounds of sex, listed in paragraph (b), and religion, in paragraph (g). I would hope that the hon. Gentleman was in favour of equality in the succession.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I believe it is true.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I do not think we are going to have an argument and a history lesson across the Chamber. I am sure the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) will either intervene or be slightly more quiet.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Mr Deputy Speaker, I was shocked at such a sedentary intervention. I have never known such things in this House before.

But things evolved and we let the borough Members in, and we now look upon them as equals.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am not sure that that is—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I think we are getting into too much detail about one’s relatives and we are also drifting, once again, away from the Bill. As much we are all enjoying it I think we had better come back to the Bill.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for bringing me back on track. I remember that there was a wonderful slogan of the Conservatives at one point, “Britain’s on the right track. Don’t turn back.” That is really what we want in speeches from this side—we want to stay on this right, Conservative track. My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley is very much on the right Conservative track with his Bill about looking at opportunity, not outcome, and to place on public authorities a duty of fairness to behave properly and not to pick winners. We know that the state has tried picking winners in the past and it is not a good policy, because the state is not going to do that well. It wants to do things on merit.

I agree very much with my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley on political candidates as well. They ought to be the ones the local parties want and not people sent down from on high. If the local parties want a man, that is up to them, and if they want a woman, that should equally be up to them. Of course we want to ensure that there is a very fine list of the best possible candidates that they can choose from, but they should have the ultimate choice and the ultimate authority. Those of us who believe in localism would like the law repealed so that it is unlawful to discriminate in that way. In safe seats, such as Rhondda, discrimination could give somebody a seat for life, with a significant income, which would be unfair to people who might have done the job equally well and may have been more wanted by the electorate to whom they were accountable. Parties need to be conscious of their power in safe seats.

There is, as always, a but. I was concerned about the point made by the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane) who said that the Bill would outlaw nunneries because they could represent discrimination by a public authority in favour of women. I am not sure that point is right, because if Her Majesty’s Government or any other public authority—the Charity Commission, for example—were to support nunneries and monasteries equally, there would be a balance, and as there may be more monks than nuns in this country it might be positive discrimination in favour of men, if it were any discrimination at all. I do not think that criticism of the Bill actually holds. [Interruption.] Does the hon. Member for Rhondda want to speak? It is very difficult to pick up all these sedentary interruptions, Mr Deputy Speaker.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman does not have to pick them up; he can choose to ignore them.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. Your guidance is helpful to the nth degree. I am greatly appreciative of it and I shall now make sure that I imitate the deaf adder: charm the hon. Member for Rhondda ever so nicely, I shall not be able to hear. We remember the deaf adder from our scripture lessons; as the hon. Gentleman is a former vicar, he will no doubt be able to call it to mind.

I am slightly concerned that the succession to the Crown could be affected, but I think the Bill could be amended to make it absolutely clear that there will be no effect on the succession and that the discrimination that remains is germane until such time as it is settled on its own in a different way—if ever it is to be changed. As a Catholic, I do not think it is a good idea to open the succession to Catholics; it would make no sense to have a Catholic as the head of the Church of England and it would be a pity to disestablish the Church of England by accident.

I am broadly in support of the Bill. The real principle is that we must not be condescending to people who can do it for themselves. We must embrace freedom and liberty. We must let people have every conceivable opportunity and then let them strive, go forward and work to achieve what they can and what they will. We must not say that we have to make sure that the number fits the box. We must not take the broad principle, to quote a former Labour Cabinet Minister, that the man in Whitehall really does know best, because the man in Whitehall does not know best, and even if he becomes a woman she still does not know best. It should be left to individuals, and we should avoid this socialistic tendency to try to get equality of outcome, which we will in fact never achieve.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

It is always a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), who spoke with such authority on the matter. I am a sponsor of the Bill and am obviously rising to support it.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) for bringing us the Bill. Millions of people across the country will be saying, “Hooray” this morning because at last somebody has started to roll back the tide of political correctness. I am pleased to be joined in support for the Bill by my right hon. Friends the Members for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley) and for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight), and my hon. Friends the Members for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Brady), for Christchurch (Mr Chope) and for Kettering (Mr Hollobone).

I want to follow up one or two of the points made by earlier speakers. The first is about racist jokes. Over the years, the nature of comedy in this country has changed, but we must not think that because we have changed it means that racist jokes were restricted only to this country. I understand that in Canada jokes were often told about the Newfoundlanders—the Newfies. No one took offence. It was part and parcel of their way of life—their culture—just as we have Irish jokes. It is not demeaning in any way.

Like the Bill’s promoter, I am a Yorkshireman and we also have jokes about Yorkshiremen. Jokes about sections of the community are common. I have often heard my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs tell jokes about Lancashire, and, indeed, I have heard him telling jokes about people from Sheffield and Rotherham. Nobody took offence at that.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

They may not have taken offence, but as we both know, there is nothing about jokes on the face of the Bill. I know that an argument is being built, but I think we can move on from the jokes now—much as I am tempted by the mention of Yorkshire.

[Mr Nuttall]

Earlier in the debate the question was asked: can we take equality too far? Does it mean changing the nature of our society? Can we take free speech too far? In the same way, when I was young—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I am sure doors matter to people who are over 2 metres—usually it is 6 feet 6 inches—but I cannot see the connection between the Bill and where we are being led, so I am sure the hon. Gentleman would like to bring us back now to the Bill.

[Mr Nuttall]

I will indeed, Mr Deputy Speaker. The point I make is where do we draw the line? I will leave—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. To help the hon. Gentleman, I have drawn the line at doors.

[Mr Nuttall]

I entirely accept that, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I will leave that point there.

The new positive action provisions make it clear that employers must not adopt policies or practices designed routinely to favour candidates with a certain protected characteristic of whatever nature, even where there is evidence of under-representation or disadvantage. All suitably qualified candidates must be considered on their individual merits for the post in question. Current positive action provisions in employment relate only to training or encouragement—for example, mentoring schemes for ethnic minority staff where they are under-represented in senior roles, or open days to encourage women applicants in male-dominated sectors. This merely serves to upset and discriminate against all those who are not allowed to take part in such training. Why should they not receive the same training just because of their racial background, sex or particular individual characteristics?

The Sex Discrimination (Election Candidates) Act 2002 was originally presented on 17 October 2001. The key objective of the Act was to enable a political party, should it wish to do so, to adopt measures that regulate the selection of candidates for certain elections in order to reduce inequality in the numbers of men and women as candidates in that party. In south Yorkshire in the 1980s I was regularly involved in the selection of parliamentary candidates. Of, say, 50 applications that we would typically receive for a seat, there would be on average 45 from men, three from women and two from ethnic minority candidates. It follows, therefore, that with 90% of the applications being from white males, very often a male was selected, but we were selecting purely on merit.

There were many examples, and there continue to be many examples in the Conservative party, of women who have succeeded on their merits. I know from Mrs Nuttall that she feels extremely patronised whenever there is any talk of special treatment being given to women.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Green]

I think that it would be foolish to enter into Church politics in that way from this Dispatch Box, so I will merely note what the hon. Gentleman has said. I wanted to correct him on a point that was perhaps not central to his argument. In referring to my former neighbouring MP for Maidstone and the Weald, Ann Widdecombe, he said that she had been voted off “Strictly” very early. That is not true. She went a very long way in “Strictly”, and indeed the BBC was panicking that she was going to win.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Not being an entrant of “Strictly”, I can be strictly authoritarian on this—we are going to stick to the Bill.

[Chris Bryant]

And I didn’t say that.