Business of the House

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

We will wait to receive the report along with everybody else. It is an independent report, and independent reports are submitted to Government when they are submitted to Government. As soon as we are able to give further information about it we will, but we are waiting in the same way that the hon. Gentleman is.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

Further to the answer that my right hon. Friend gave last week to the question by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) about legislation on caste discrimination, does my right hon. Friend agree that the issue is not so much whether discrimination legislation is unwanted as whether it is necessary? If we are to have a statement by the Minister for Women and Equalities, will she acknowledge in it the meetings that she has had with those affected by caste discrimination in this country and the representations that she has had from them?

[Chris Grayling]

These are of course sensitive issues. We are a society in which every individual should be treated equally and fairly, and the law should apply to all parts of our society in the same way. There will of course be opportunities to address Ministers the week after next, when we will have Women and Equalities questions and Communities and Local Government questions. Both colleagues who have raised the issue in the past week and a half should feel free to raise it with Ministers again on those occasions.