Clause 15 - Codes of practice: supplemental
Equality Bill
Public Bill Committees, 1 December 2005, 9:15 am
Meg Munn (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department of Trade and Industry; Sheffield, Heeley, Labour)
I fear that the hon. Gentleman may already have made my points, but I shall still give the hon. Member for Romsey the Government’s explanation as to why the amendment is unnecessary. The drafting in the Bill is designed to carry forward the requirements and legal effect of the Race Relations Act 1976, the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and the Disability Discrimination Act 2005, which oblige a court or tribunal to take a code issued by the relevant existing commission into account in deciding matters before it. I accept that the drafting in clause 15 differs from that in the Acts that I have mentioned, but the legal effect is the same.
Clause 15 provides that a code of practice issued by the Commission for Equality and Human Rights shall be admissible in evidence in criminal or civil proceedings, and that a court or tribunal must take a code of practice into account in any case in which it appears to the court or tribunal to be relevant. However, the code needs to be presented as evidence first. Thereafter, it is for the court to decide whether it is relevant. If the court or tribunal concludes that it is relevant, it is obliged to take the code into account.
A code of practice is designed to ensure or facilitate compliance with a provision of the equality enactments or to promote equality of opportunity. It is expected to describe the ways in which statutory obligations can be met. Therefore, it would be available to parties to a dispute to point to compliance or otherwise with a code of practice as evidence of the intention or otherwise to comply with the legislation.
It would not be practical to require a court or tribunal to take into account a code of practice if it had not been presented as evidence. A court or tribunal may simply not be aware of the full range of codes, so it is incumbent on the parties to bring a code to the attention of the court or tribunal, which they would be likely to do if it lent support to their argument. It is unnecessary and impractical to place a direct obligation on courts or tribunals to take codes of practice into account in any proceedings before them. Consequently, I ask the hon. Lady to withdraw her amendment.