Clause 30
Equality Bill
4:15 pm
Mark Harper (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; Forest of Dean, Conservative)
It is always good to start promptly—it has all sorts of advantages. This simple amendment would leave out paragraph (a) and is nothing more than a probing amendment tabled because, having read the section and realised that the part on premises does not apply to the protected characteristics of age and marriage and civil partnership, I could not think of good reasons why we would want to exclude age. I have therefore tabled an amendment to leave out that paragraph simply to provoke a discussion and give the Minister the opportunity to set out the Government’s thinking about why age should be excluded from the section. That is the purpose of the amendment. I look forward to what the Minister has to say.