Clause 17 - Grants
Equality Bill
9:30 am
James Brokenshire (Hornchurch, Conservative)
I want to echo some of the comments made by my hon. Friend, and in particular, to focus on enforcement powers. I want to ensure that by making reference to a “person” the provisions are not restricting the enforcement powers—that those powers will be available to ensure that racism or sexism, for example, is not permitted in certain organisations even if they do not fall within the limited definition of “person”.Similarly, as my hon. Friend said, we obviously want to ensure that the grants given under clause 17 are made available to all persons, in the widest possible sense. I would be interested to hear what the Minister has to say about the definition of “person”, given its import in relation to subsequent clauses.