Socioeconomic Equality Duty

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, I could not have put it better than my noble friend Lord Lester.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, I was disappointed in the Minister's Statement. I remind her, given her response to my noble friend, that the previous Government lifted 500,000 children and close to a million pensioners out of poverty. Therefore, for her to claim that we did nothing about poverty is at best disingenuous—I say this despite the respect that I have for her.

The Minister mentioned the pupil premium. Perhaps she saw that yesterday in the other place the Liberal Democrat MP David Ward walked out when it became clear that the pupil premium will not give a per-pupil increase in real terms. It is a sham. She will have seen in yesterday's unemployment figures that the number of unemployed women went up by 31,000 while the number of unemployed men went down by 40,000. Does that not show that we need legal duties in place as safeguards to ensure that we continue to address inequality?

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, I do not need to take lessons from the noble Lord. However, I will add that the gap between those who have and those who have not has widened—and it widened during 13 years of the noble Lord’s Government. The noble Lord highlighted the issue of legal duty. That is why we supported the Equality Act.