Clause 73
Equality Bill
5:00 pm
Mark Harper (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; Forest of Dean, Conservative)
If, as the Minister says, companies are acting in that way already and recognise that such measures are good for business—a point that we have made today and my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) made on Second Reading—why does she believe that the provision is necessary? The fact that she is making it voluntary for the first four years suggests that she thinks—if not she, then other members of the Government—that there is a case about its burdensome and costly nature, which is why it is not being brought in immediately and she wants to leave it to see whether businesses can be persuaded to do it by the case that she is putting.