Evan Harris (Oxford West & Abingdon, Liberal Democrat)

I am pleased to welcome you to the Chair again, Lady Winterton. In the 20 seconds that I had before we adjourned our earlier sitting, I said that I thought we could get through the amendments quickly, as the main point behind them had been debated to a significant extent in our previous sitting.

The two amendments are essentially equivalent. One amends clause 12 and would provide that sexual orientation includes manifestations of sexual orientation. Another, possibly slightly better drafted amendment, starred amendment 237 in the amendment paper, amounts essentially to the same thing, which is that sexual orientation

‘includes manifestations of any such sexual orientation.’.

Amendment 220 on page 147 of the amendment paper amends clause 13 and deals with direct discrimination.

I explained earlier that the concern was to put the provisions clearly into statute law with the point of probing what the case law is in that respect, not only because it is right and proper that manifestations of sexual orientation are—to quote the judge again—“intimately wrapped up” with one’s sexual orientation, but because it will help to make it clear to the public, and particularly to employers, that they cannot rely on a distinction between sexual conduct where it relates closely to sexual orientation and sexual orientation itself.

I explained that there is a request, bordering on an expectation, that employers will be able to do so when I referred to memorandum E14, which we received from the Catholic Bishops Conference. The memorandum says that the Catholic Bishops Conference would want to apply a conduct test, even for, it is implied,

“a residential caretaker post if it involves routine contact with the local Catholic community.”

It went on to say that

“there is a whole range of posts, paid or voluntary, where it is essential that the Church has the right to prefer a candidate whose life is in accordance with its ethos; these might include, for example, youth workers, members of marriage preparation teams, and parish secretaries. What all these have in common is a pastoral, representative, or functional role where their effectiveness in the post for which they are being paid would be severely limited if their life were openly at variance with the teachings of the Church.”

That is an interesting phrase. I do not know whether “openly” implies that it would not be an issue if they kept their private life to themselves, or whether the employer would seek to investigate their private life.