Queen’s Speech

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I was really pleased to see in the gracious Speech a focus on enabling individuals to develop their skills and realise their potential. This reminded me of a powerful point made by the Prime Minister during the election campaign that talent is distributed equally but opportunity is not. As he said, and as many other noble Lords have said, we need to level up. To do that, I believe that this one-nation Conservative Government must prioritise promoting equality of opportunity.

The year 2020 is one of momentous legislative anniversaries for equality. I think of parliamentary giants like the late noble Lords, Lord Ashley of Stoke and Lord Morris of Manchester. Incredibly, the latter’s Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act is 50 this year. My noble friend Lord Hague of Richmond’s ground-breaking Disability Discrimination Act—the DDA—is 25 years old and, of course, the Equality Act turns 10 this year.

How different the world would be for me, for the UK’s 14 million disabled people and, indeed, for those with other protected characteristics—including women and members of the BAME and LGBT communities—had noble Lords not worked together to pass those and related pieces of legislation. What a cause for celebration it is that your Lordships’ House did so.

Yet I am also acutely aware of two things that are not a cause for celebration. First, so much remains to be done to realise the empowering vision of the DDA and the Equality Act so that equality of opportunity becomes a reality for everyone, regardless of their protected characteristic. Secondly, there is a real danger that essential change will not happen unless there is political will on all sides to make it happen.

The need is now. As my noble friend Lord Forsyth of Drumlean indicated in his powerful speech, the demographic pressure on social care is growing exponentially. We need to release resources to fund it. We can do this if we help more people to enter and flourish in employment, reducing reliance on benefits and increasing tax revenues. In short, there is no alternative if we are to make any investment sustainable.

Sadly, the current reality is that, as we enter the third decade of the 21st century, some are still denied the equality of opportunity to make the most of their potential. Take, for example, ethnic minorities, with an employment gap of almost 13%, or disabled people, with a gap of almost 30%. Stonewall has found that 18% of LGBT people were discriminated against while looking for work.

As we have already heard said today, it is time for some radical, fresh thinking to build on the success of big business giants like Paul Polman, the former chief executive of Unilever, who has voiced support for pay gap reporting and led the way in promoting diversity that enriches and rewards employers and employees alike. My workforce information Bill would help to do this. It already has the support of big businesses like EY and Enterprise Holdings, and of people such as my noble friend Lady McGregor-Smith, Andy Street, and Matthew Cameron from LGBT Great. My Bill would harness the energy of enterprise to drive equality of opportunity as a competitive advantage for big businesses looking to attract, retain and develop the best from the most diverse talent pool and, most importantly, to grow their turnover.

Big businesses deserve a level playing field to maximise the incentive to make best practice common practice. That means extending mandatory pay gap reporting for big business to other protected characteristics as well. So I close with a plea to the Minister and to your Lordships’ House as a whole: a quarter of a century after the DDA became law, let us make 2020 the year that is remembered for how, together, we struck another powerful blow for equality of opportunity. Supporting the measures contained in my Bill would be a step in the right direction.