Clause 4
Equality Bill
2:30 pm
An amendment to outlaw discrimination based on a person’s caste.
The amendment looks again at protected characteristics. We are seeking to probe the Solicitor-General’s thinking on caste being a protected characteristic. The caste system exists in the United Kingdom because it has been imported by a large south Asian immigrant community. My understanding is the caste system makes distinctions between different sections of society by dividing communities into rigid social groups determined by birth and/or occupation. That type of behaviour in this country is exactly what the Bill, in its essence, seeks to outlaw, so we ought to give serious consideration to whether caste-based discrimination should be specifically outlawed by making caste a protected characteristic.
I am aware that the Government claim that they have found no evidence of caste discrimination, but I am interested to hear from the Minister what efforts the Government have made and how they have sought such evidence. Does the hon. and learned Lady agree that it is likely to be more difficult to find out whether discrimination exists in an immigrant community because of the inherent difficulties of consulting members of the community about something they know is not part of the ethos? Just because the Government have not been able to find the evidence, should we not question whether that discrimination exists in some form? Those who might suffer caste discrimination—untouchables, or whatever—are less likely to be plugged into those routes, to come forward to make a complaint, or to use the channels that others who are not in a caste system might use.
The evolution of the Bill has been based largely on engagement with established and organised lobby groups that are well geared to respond to the Government’s consultations, but I am not sure that that is true of those who experience caste discrimination. If the Government are not persuaded, rather than miss the opportunity of a generation to outlaw a potential form of discrimination that flies in the face of everything that the Bill tries to do, why not allow the possibility of an enabling clause to be enacted by a Minister in the future, if now is not the right time or if the Minister is not minded to add it as a protected characteristic? Perhaps we can enact it to protect against a future where we discover the evidence.