Clause 8
Equality Bill
11:30 am
Lynne Featherstone (Hornsey and Wood Green, Liberal Democrat)
The amendment has been tabled to probe the Government’s thinking on why single and cohabiting people have been left out. Why are marriage and civil partnership protected? Why are they protected and a cohabiting couple or a single person not? It is about relationship status and, in an anti-discrimination Bill, we would not expect any relationship status not to be as important as another. If the provision is not amended, surely single people and cohabiting couples will face the possibility of real discrimination. I would welcome the Government elucidating whether there is something particular that they had in mind that applies to married couples and civil partnerships and from which they, but not cohabiting couples and single people, need protection that.