Clause 6
Equality Bill
10:30 am
Evan Harris (Oxford West and Abingdon, Liberal Democrat)
It is a pleasure to welcome you back to the Chair, Mr. Benton.
I want to speak briefly to the amendments tabled in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green. The group has three separate components, the lead amendment being amendment 114, which would take out reference to “long-term” when defining an impairment. I shall explain the reasoning.
The other amendments in the group, specifically amendments 179 and 186 to 188, would clarify whether there is an ambiguity in the Bill—a minor point, on which I do not intend to spend long. Amendment 180 is a more detailed attempt to get at the same issue as amendment 114, questioning whether there is a way to define an impairment so that we capture those that, while not being long term in themselves, are likely to recur. I do not claim great faith in the wording of amendment 180 as appropriate to that aim, but that is the intention.
A long-standing concern of the disabled community, and among those of us who support equality, has been the need to ensure that all the people who need to benefit from the protection provided by existing anti-discrimination law and what is proposed can benefit without matters of definition preventing them from doing so. The concern about the use of “long-term” and how it is described in schedule 1 is that that might prevent those people—I am quoting the Equality and Human Rights Commission briefing on the amendment—
“with short-term conditions, particularly mental health conditions such as depression”
from benefiting from the protection.
“Long-term” is defined in schedule 1:
“The effect of an impairment is long-term if... it has lasted for at least 12 months... is likely to last for at least 12 months, or... is likely to last for the rest of the life of the person affected.”
The concern, therefore, is with chronic but fluctuating conditions in which the effect cannot be seen to last continuously for 12 months, but is liable to recur.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission welcomes the removal of the list of normal, day-to-day activities from the definition of disability in the Bill, but it is concerned that the clause repeats the requirement for the effects of the impairment to be long term.