Clause 80 - Regulations
Equality Bill [Lords]
8:55 am
Evan Harris (Science, Non-Departmental & Cross Departmental Responsibilities; Oxford West and Abingdon, Liberal Democrat)
This appears to be a time for a general discussion of the clause, so I shall first say a few words about its genesis.
The Minister and Committee members will know that my party has long argued for equality on the basis of sexual orientation of the sort that we are discussing—indeed, the first time that we made a serious attempt to achieve that was when my noble Friend Lord Lester introduced an Equality Bill in the House of Lords a number of years ago. It was extremely disappointing that the Government did not take that opportunity to bring in that sort of equality—that is, to end discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation in the provision of goods and services. Ending that discrimination has been in our manifesto on a number of occasions and there is no doubt that the Government have similar intentions. Labour's 1997 manifesto said—