Equality Bill

Updates

27 January 2010

The Equality Bill now before Parliament is valuable for consolidating existing legislation and clarifying how it is applied. In one respect, though, it has caused great concern to the Bishops’ Conference, as it has to the leaders of all other major religious groups in the country.

As originally drafted, the Bill contained a definition of employment for the purposes of organised religion that was unworkable. Although it did not affect schools, nor the rights of employers with a religious ethos to identify posts where someone of the same religion should be appointed, it would have severely limited the right of the Church as an employer to discriminate on the grounds of marital status, sex, sexuality etc.

As soon as the Bill was published in April, both Catholic and Anglican churches pointed out to the Government Equality Office that their definition of employment was so narrow that it would even exclude clergy, never mind those lay posts with significant roles in representing or promoting religion. This would have produced a position where it would have been unlawful to take any action against a priest who decided to get married and insisted on remaining in post (or, indeed to require that he be male and celibate in the first place). It would also have meant that it would be illegal to exclude from a lay post a person whose life-style and circumstances were notoriously at variance with Church teaching, even where this made it impossible for them to function credibly in the post.

The Church would of course look at the circumstances of any particular case with pastoral sensitivity, but it would be unacceptable for the Church never to be able to reject a candidate on these grounds.

Ministers considered the arguments put to them, but decided that they would make no change to the Bill. They maintained that their intention was to clarify the existing law, not to change it.

The result was a sustained campaign by all major religions in the country, lobbying MPs, Peers, officials and using the media to urge the Government to take a more reasonable position.

At the last minute, the Government realised it would have difficulties getting the Bill through the Lords in the very tight time-scale required by the coming election. They then tabled an amendment in response to our representations which improved the definition considerably. Unfortunately, it still left some uncertainty as to how a Court would interpret the definition. For that reason, the only prudent course was to encourage Peers to vote for an alternative amendment which would simply delete the definition altogether.

House of Lords vote
25 January 2010

The House of Lords voted on Monday 25 January and rejected the Government’s inadequate amendment, supporting instead the complete deletion of the problematic definition. This has the effect of leaving the law exactly as it is at present (which was, after all the Government’s stated aim). The Bill has yet to complete its Parliamentary process, and there are in theory further opportunities to reopen the issue. However, given the time pressures, any attempt to do so would imperil the Bill as a whole.

Although the Church welcomes the result of the vote in the House of Lords, this was an issue which should never have come to such a point. If the Government had been prepared to listen to genuine problems explained to them privately, it would have been possible to agree a Government amendment which met the needs of all parties. The Church wants to work constructively with policy makers and Ministers to help them get their legislation in the best form possible and to avoid any unintended consequences. We hope to have the opportunity to do so more effectively in the future.