Clause 1
Equality Bill
1:00 pm
Vera Baird (Solicitor General, Attorney General's Office; Redcar, Labour)
I do not think we are doing quite the latter. We think that we have got into this part of the clause all the relevant strategic authorities, but we cannot be sure we have, so we kept a residual power to add to it. There has been a deliberate process of looking at those authorities to ensure that the duty bites on the right decisions, rather than thinking that it should be applied more widely and allowing everyone else in later.
As for the inspectorates that inspect the public authorities that are covered by the measure, it would be redundant to put a duty on them. The duty has been placed on the public authorities listed in clause 1(3)(a) to (k). They all have the duty. The inspectorates will have to inspect them to make sure that they carry out their statutory duties, because that is part of the matrix of their inspection. We are having detailed discussions with the Audit Commission and the other inspectorates to ensure that there are worked-out ways in which that will be done, because it is key that they should be appropriately monitored. Therefore, there is no need, where the measure bites on the public authority itself, to make it bite on the inspectorate that will inspect it. We have already heard the arguments earlier today that, if the duty is not placed on the body, it should not be put on the inspectorate.