Clause 5 - Strategic plan: consultation
Equality Bill [Lords]
12:45 pm
Vera Baird (PPS (Rt Hon Charles Clarke, Secretary of State), Home Office; Redcar, Labour)
Briefly, clause 5 requires certain consultations to proceed before the strategic plan that we have just approved in clause 4 is made. It says that the commission must
“consult such persons having knowledge or experience relevant to the Commission’s functions ... consult such other persons as the Commission thinks appropriate”,
and
“issue a general invitation to make representations”
to the broader, less specialist world. It then requires the commission to
“take account of any representations made.”
It seems that the clause requires the commission to take account only of the representations made by the broader world and not of the responses to its consultations under paragraphs (a) and (b). That concerns me slightly, because there seems to be little point in inviting input from experts and then not giving the commission a duty to take account of the response. I do not know whether the Minister will be able to help me on that matter, but perhaps she understands why I am driven to that conclusion.