Clause 78
Equality Bill
5:15 pm
Mark Harper (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; Forest of Dean, Conservative)
I rise to speak to amendment 243 and new clause 19, which was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry, who, owing to his service on the Council of Europe, is unable to be in Committee today.
As the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green said, the amendment probes, as does the new clause, the extent to which volunteers will be covered. If organisations rely heavily on volunteers and if all the rules in the work section apply to volunteers, we want to ensure that, given the nature of volunteering—the length of the relationship and what is invested in it—we do not make organisations less likely to want to use volunteers. In particular, as we discussed in the previous debate, the route back to work for some disabled people will involve going straight from benefits to working in a full-time job, but the route for others will perhaps involve taking up a volunteering opportunity, then a part-time opportunity and then full-time work. For many people, that is a successful route back into work.
The amendment and new clause test what applies to employers. Not only do we want employers not to discriminate, but we want them to use the disability provisions. We want them to be able to favour disabled people not just as employees but as volunteers, to provide opportunities that will help not just the disabled people but our overall goal of getting more of them back into work.
The amendment and new clause are designed to check the extent to which this part of the Bill applies to those who are volunteering their services to organisations. Will it apply to volunteering in general, or will it capture other types of volunteering, such as volunteering that is akin to working, albeit without pay?