Clause 59 - Membership requirement
Equality Bill [Lords]
6:15 pm
Evan Harris (Science, Non-Departmental & Cross Departmental Responsibilities; Oxford West and Abingdon, Liberal Democrat)
I tabled an amendment to omit the clause to remind myself that I wished to have a stand part debate, and it worked, so I am learning. It is taken eight years.
The clause was added in the House of Lords—I read the debates with interest—to allow scouts and guides to continue discriminating against atheists by requiring a promise professing adherence to God or gods. That practice not only excludes the non-religious, such as humanists, but also Jains, most Buddhists and all those belonging to non-theistic religions. It would appear that children with those beliefs are to be welcomed by these organisations if they are willing to pretend that they have a theistic religious faith. We have all done that, to a certain extent, if we consider our past behaviour. I speak for myself. In order not to get beaten up there are a number of things that people do at school. However, children who consciously adopt a non-religious or humanistic life-stance are rejected and turned away. The same rule applies to scout leaders. Atheists are automatically rejected, as are, with somewhat more reason, people such as sex offenders.
It is offensive and unjustified—although there is no right not to be offended—for the organisations in question to reject people who would otherwise do a good job on the basis of their lack of belief in God. They are not religious organisations in the strictest sense; they just have a membership test that requires, for historical reasons, this so-called promise to be made.
The Minister will be aware of the case read out in the House of Lords, which I will not repeat. I have had representations along those lines from someone who was rejected as a scout leader because he refused to lie when encouraged by the leadership to say, ''Just say it and then we'll forget about it and it'll never come up again.'' When he said that he was unwilling to state that he believed in God, he was told that he could not be a scout leader, because it was appropriate that the spiritual dimension of the scouts was looked after by this particular person.
The Bill as it originally stood would have addressed that long-standing injustice, but it has been removed by a Government amendment that was carefully worded to embrace what the British Humanist Association called hypocrisy encouraged by scouts and guides, in that under the clause organisations do not require their members to have religious faith, but only to make a statement asserting or implying membership or acceptance. Hypocrisy is a hard word, but one can see the British Humanist Association's point.
Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.
On resuming—
Evan Harris (Science, Non-Departmental & Cross Departmental Responsibilities; Oxford West and Abingdon, Liberal Democrat)
I was just explaining that the British Humanist Association felt that by allowing the promise to continue to be required, the clause encourages people just to say the words when they do not mean them. Hypocrisy is a hard word, but people who are excluded because of the promise, or whose children are excluded, feel strongly. I have some sympathy with them when they point out that if the organisations or the Government want such an approach to continue, it is not an admirable moral education for young people.
The Scout Association and Guide Association profess to be for everyone. I have great admiration for those organisations. I did that sort of thing when I was even younger than I am now, and I thoroughly enjoyed it and know many people who do so and who make a valuable contribution to the community. However, even if they are excellent organisations, it is important to ensure that they are as inclusive as possible. The Scout Association, in its annual report this year
''underlined our commitment to make Scouting available to those of different faiths and beliefs.''
The vision of the Guide Association, which uses the heading ''Guiding is for everyone'', is
''to have sufficient volunteer leaders to enable every girl and young woman to have the opportunity to join Girlguiding UK.''
Should not a law against religious discrimination force those organisations to recant a policy that is greatly at odds with their own professions of universality? Were they to restrict membership to believers, they would, arguably, rule out the 65 per cent. of 12 to 19 year-olds who answered no when asked if they regarded themselves as belonging to any particular religion in a recent survey sponsored by the Department for Education and Skills, titled ''Young People in Britain: The Attitudes and Experiences of 12 to 19 Year Olds''.
In some areas, scouts and guides are the only provider of youth activities apart from churches and other religious organisations. We often debate the need for more youth activities, but permitting scouts and guides to continue to discriminate against the non-religious and those who are not prepared to say something that they do not mean would deprive significant numbers of young people of the benefits of organised youth activities, leaving them with few alternatives to simply hanging out with their friends, which can, we know, lead to antisocial behaviour. The time limitation in subsection (2) is an implicit admission by the Government that the exception is not justified by some great principle. They have simply conceded the amendment to two powerful organisations.
My final point is that the scouts and guides are not simply private membership organisations; they receive public money for their work. When people receive public money, there has to be good justification for their not being inclusive. For example, the Scout Association receives an annual capitation grant from the Ministry of Defence to fund the sea scouts. The guides also received a Government grant in 2004, and local groups receive significant funding from local authorities every year. In 2004–05, scouts and guides groups received local authority funding in Shetland, Hertsmere, Stratford, east Dorset, Hampshire, Bromley, Midlothian, Surrey and north Somerset to name but a few places. That information, says the British Humanist Association, can be found by a simple search on the internet.
The fundamental point is that the Government were right to resist the proposal when it was made in the Lords. It is regrettable that an alternative way was not found to persuade valuable organisations that do good work against having a faith promise limited to monotheism or theism, not just religion generally, or against any such discrimination, given that the organisations say that people do not really have to believe, but just have to say the words to go with the flow.
That sort of thing is inappropriate, and one would have hoped that the Bill would deal with it rather than providing a loophole that spoils the whole thrust behind what it seeks to achieve. The clause is not necessary. The Scouts and Guides would not crumble if they did not have the ability to discriminate on the basis of a religious pledge. I hope that the Minister can find some justification for the clause that is based on principle, not expediency.
Dominic Grieve (Shadow Attorney General, (Assist the Home Affairs Team); Beaconsfield, Conservative)
I disagree completely. Organisations exist because people are happy to conform to their ways. The hon. Gentleman will find that in France the scout movement—I am not sure about the guides—is split in two. One part is religiously based and the other based on secular principles. That is presumably a response to the desires of people in France. If people want to set up a youth organisation on secular principles, it is open to them to do so. It would be quite wrong if a charity that fulfilled all the criteria for a charitable purpose were to be subject to a restriction eliminating a pledge to God as an element of its membership. That would turn it into a nationalised organisation, which it is not.
Evan Harris (Science, Non-Departmental & Cross Departmental Responsibilities; Oxford West and Abingdon, Liberal Democrat)
I know that the hon. Gentleman is not suggesting that this would be legitimate, but I hope that he will accept that his argument echoes those put forward by the golf clubs that told my parents that if the Jews wanted to belong to a golf club, they could go to their own. Indeed, golf clubs were set up to meet that demand. I do not think, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman does not, that because that possibility will always be available to people in a market for private pursuits, we should accept that it is inevitable.
Dominic Grieve (Shadow Attorney General, (Assist the Home Affairs Team); Beaconsfield, Conservative)
A golf club exists for the purpose of playing golf—at least, it usually does—whereas youth organisations such as the scouts and the guides exist for the purposes of personal development along the lines of the pledge that they ask people to make when they join. If young people, or their parents or organisers, want to set up another organisation along similar lines that does not require such a pledge, it is open to them to do so. I am grateful to the Government for their response on that point.
Paul Goggins (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Wythenshawe and Sale East, Labour)
As the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon has already indicated, clause 59 protects charities that may not have a religious purpose stated within their charitable instrument, but which require members to assert their adherence to or acceptance of a religion or belief. The most obvious example is the one that he used, of the scouts or guides. I shall, I am sure you will be pleased to hear, Mr. Gale, spare the Committee recollections of my time in the scouts.
In relation to the scouts and guides, the question is not about a specific religion, but about a general belief in a supreme being or beings. Both charities require their members to make a promise to do their duty to God. Members are permitted to tailor their promise to their own religion, such as referring to ''Allah'' or ''gods'' rather than to ''God''. In the example given by the hon. Gentleman, a Jewish person would be able to join the scouts because he or she would understand the promise in their own terms.
It is important to give such protection to well established organisations that provide a wonderful support service for young people. It is also important—I hope that this offers the hon. Gentleman some reassurance—that we do not allow it to become a loophole through which new, emerging organisations can get round their obligations under the legislation. We have imposed a restriction on the exception, making it available only for charities that first introduced the requirement of the statement asserting religion or belief before 18 May 2005. That appears in the Bill, and we believe that it will protect reputable and valuable charities, such as the scouts and guides, while preventing misuse of the exception by charities that might wish to discriminate against one or more religious groups by introducing the requirement of a statement and then claiming protection under clause 59.
Evan Harris (Science, Non-Departmental & Cross Departmental Responsibilities; Oxford West and Abingdon, Liberal Democrat)
Paul Goggins (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Wythenshawe and Sale East, Labour)
I had precisely three words to say before the hon. Gentleman intervened.
Evan Harris (Science, Non-Departmental & Cross Departmental Responsibilities; Oxford West and Abingdon, Liberal Democrat)
This may be the last intervention today. Is the Minister saying that charities are being protected from the need to change their pledges? Their viability is not threatened by the legislation, unless he is assuming that they will be wholly flooded by atheists, humanists and agnostics, even though their purpose is not to do with religion. When he says that the clause is intended to protect those organisations, what are they being protected from? Is it still worth institutionalising the discrimination that I have described, against one group of believers? He talked about Muslims, Allah and Jews and so on but left out those people caught under the legislation who have a belief that just happens to be a non-religious one?
Paul Goggins (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Wythenshawe and Sale East, Labour)
I contend that it is not for the state to determine what the promise made by the scouts and guides should be. They are well established organisations, and people understand the promise. Individual people may have their own decision to take—the hon. Gentleman referred to one or two examples—but there is no way that the legislation should be allowed to destroy or distort the valuable work that organisations such as the scouts and guides do.
Evan Harris (Science, Non-Departmental & Cross Departmental Responsibilities; Oxford West and Abingdon, Liberal Democrat)
Destroy?
Paul Goggins (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Wythenshawe and Sale East, Labour)
I used the word ''destroy''. The hon. Member for Beaconsfield explained what happened in France and pointed out the repercussions that could happen here were we to be divisive in the way that the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon is hinting at. I acknowledge that he comes to the issue with good intentions, but I believe that he is wrong. I agree with the hon. Member for Beaconsfield that it is important not to undermine the working of those organisations or others—we have concentrated on scouts and guides, but there may be others, which must have had a promise within their arrangements prior to the date specified, which is 18 May 2005. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept that explanation.
Evan Harris (Science, Non-Departmental & Cross Departmental Responsibilities; Oxford West and Abingdon, Liberal Democrat)
The problem with the Minister's reply is the same as the problem with the answer to the hon. Member for Beaconsfield. None of the arguments that he adduced could not also be used in different circumstances when it comes to race relations legislation. Organisations could say that they had always had a race bar, and that that is the way that they work. I am not saying that that is a comparable offence, although it is an offence to those who are discriminated against, but the answer given in those cases was that organisations would not be so badly damaged by having to comply with legislation on discrimination, because the Government believe that not discriminating, particularly against children, is a legitimate thing for us to be interested in. I am sorry that I have not got the support of the Minister and the hon. Member for Beaconsfield, but I think that I speak for the many people who will wonder why this clause, which is practically ad personam in terms of organisation, has been added. However, I do not intend to divide the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 59 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 60 and 61 ordered to stand part of the Bill.