John Wadham, General Counsel, Equality and Human Rights Commission, gave evidence.

Q 159

Good afternoon. May I ask you to identify yourself for the record, Mr Wadham? I suspect that you anticipate more questioning on employment aspects of the Bill, so let me know if I am mistaken.

John Wadham: Hello. I am John Wadham. I am the general counsel—the head lawyer—for the Equality and Human Rights Commission. I did expect to deal with some of the employment issues in the Bill, but, given the session you have just had, I am very happy to concentrate on the work of the commission and the amendments that are in the Bill.

I should correct one tiny point in the last sentence of our statement, where we said, “The Commission notes the International Coordinating Committee has written to the government”. They wrote to the Government some time ago in relation to the consultation paper. We are expecting them to write again about this Bill, but two things have been conflated there, and I am sorry that we got that wrong.

Q 160

I want to concentrate on clause 51. This is the Government’s flagship Bill to facilitate enterprise and economic growth. How does clause 51 do that?

John Wadham: Well, it is about a bus, isn’t it? They wanted to change some of the provisions that govern the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and this is the bus they attached that to.

Q 161

Does it help facilitate economic growth in any shape or form?

John Wadham: I have some comments on the details of the amendments, but in practice I cannot see that it would have any effect, realistically, one way or the other. There may be some issues about how the commission itself works, but I cannot see that that is going to make any difference to growth. I am not an expert in economics, but I have not seen any evidence as to why it is that provision. It would be wrong for me to comment in detail on that, because I think this is an appropriate Bill for these amendments to be made, if you believe the amendments should be made.

Q 162

My understanding being that there was cross-party, almost universal acceptance of the need for a high-quality Commission for Equality and Human Rights, do you think that what is being proposed in clause 51, in conjunction with cuts to its budget of some 60%, is a negative step?

John Wadham: I think I need to give a slightly longer answer to that question. Obviously, in relation to the issue of resources, if the commission is given fewer resources, we will have fewer staff and less money to do the work that we would want to do. However, that is a matter not for my commission but for the Government, and you should be asking your questions of the Government as to how much money they wish to give us. Certainly we are using this opportunity to become leaner and more effective. The three-year strategy that we produced, which was published by Parliament, and our recent business plan set out a whole series of proposals that we intend to deliver on and that are about doing the best possible job we can do with the resources that are made available to us.

Part of the Government’s approach is to change the remit of the commission by tendering for the public service helpline that we currently run, reducing the resources of the commission by removing the money that we previously spent on grants to voluntary sector organisations, which were about the development of equality and human rights issues, but also the provision of legal advice—law centres, advice services—and ending the conciliation service that we provided. One amendment in the Bill would take away the power to provide conciliation. The complaints process that we run for air travel, where individuals—particularly people with disabilities—want  to consider whether to make a complaint against airlines because of issues about reasonable adjustment, etc., will move to the Civil Aviation Authority.

Nevertheless, in a sense many of those decisions are for the Government, not for us, so we will do the very best we can with the resources and the remit that we have, to make a difference and to improve and protect equality and human rights in future.

Q 163

I am just following up on the question that you were just asked about whether the changes being made would affect growth. To what extent is your organisation a driver for growth in the economy? That is the implication of the question.

John Wadham: Well, I am a lawyer, so I am reluctant to step into that arena. I can tell you that I have not seen any evidence one way or the other.

Q 164

How many people are in the organisation?

John Wadham: At the end of March, we had 371 people working for us. The proposals that we are just about to make to our staff will lead eventually to a complement of 150, so that is a reduction from 371 to 150 over the next year or so, depending on issues of selection and redundancies.

Q 165

Is part of that in relation to the changes of emphasis caused by the Bill and part of it relating to efficiency changes?

John Wadham: No, those are to do with the reductions in the resources provided by the Government; the amount of grant—

Q 166

Sorry, I understand, but for example I think you do not have the requirement to promote good relations, which was a previous requirement, and the Bill is changing that. Is that facilitating some of the headcount reduction or not?

John Wadham: Not to any significant extent.

Q 167

Right. I suppose the question that is left is what will give as a consequence of losing 60% of your organisation. Which part of your service that you currently offer will be diminished? Or do you see it being—

John Wadham: I have mentioned specific issues to do with running the helpline, which will be provided independently by others, subject to a tender. I have mentioned the issues about the money that we provide to voluntary sector organisations dealing with grants and about conciliation and air travel. But the other thing that I mentioned, of course, is that we will have to do a better job with fewer resources, and that is what we intend to do.

We will announce some changes to our staff on Thursday, setting out some of those changes, which obviously we are happy to provide to the Committee. But the driver for those changes is the reduction in resources that the Government are going to provide us with, not the changes in the Bill—I am happy to go through the changes in much more detail—which are not going to be driving those changes. That is the truth.

Q 168

John, we may judge how civilised our society is by looking at how we treat the disadvantaged and marginalised. I understand you are a lawyer, but —[Interruption.] I genuinely want your view—in all seriousness, how you feel—about the Bill. Does the Bill, as it relates to the work of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, paint our country as becoming more civilised or less civilised?

John Wadham: That is a big question. The evidence that you were receiving before raises questions about the interrelationship between the proposals in this Bill, for instance the employment tribunal process, compromises as opposed to agreements, and the role of ACAS. That is only part of the picture. Not only are there other proposals being implemented by the Government in relation to employment law, but there are other proposals at the moment subject to consultation. This Bill is only a small part of that.

There is a reason why I said I knew you were a lawyer. I was trying not to get a lawyer’s answer. The question is: does this Bill as it relates to the work of the Equality and Human Rights Commission paint our country as more civilised or less? What do you genuinely and honestly think?

John Wadham: I want to be as accurate as I can. The proposals that change the remit of the Equality and Human Rights Commission in clause 51 will not make a significant difference to the work of the commission. Therefore, to the extent that the commission promotes the kind of society that you have mentioned, it will not make a significant difference to that society. We would want to keep some of the provisions that are being taken away, but they are not as significant as they might perhaps seem looking at the legislation.

There were other proposals that the Government originally made, such as cutting down the remit that the commission has in section 8 of the Equality Act 2006, which is no longer being suggested. However, this is a missed opportunity by the Government to bring in some provisions that we would like to see. These are the harmonisation between our equality and our human rights remit; and perhaps most importantly, a process whereby we are accountable to you, Parliament, rather than to the Government. We are a non-departmental public body, which means that we have a sponsor Department, currently the Government Equalities Office, which is part of the Home Office. Although that is a traditional approach that Government take to such bodies where they have to have some kind of arm’s length independence, we believe that a better and proper independence, preferred by the United Nations when it set out the Paris principles for bodies like ourselves, is the case of the Parliamentary Ombudsman and Electoral Commission. It is easier to demonstrate our independence.

To give you an example: we were considering taking judicial review proceedings against a number of police forces and the Secretary of State—the Home Secretary—about compliance with article 8, which is currently being debated elsewhere; and more importantly about the disproportionality of how stop and search was used. I was debating whether or not to do that at the same time that the Secretary of State was deciding on our remit and, presumably our existence. That raises a question in a lawyer’s head—and perhaps in everyone else’s—about the separation of powers. We would see  the long-term future of a body like ourselves—whether it is the same or a different one—as subject to your accountability, so that you could decide how much money we should have. You could decide who should be the chair, which is an issue that is going to be debated by the Secretary of State, who can choose the new chair—although I understand that there will be a confirmation process by Committees of Parliament. That would give us the opportunity to tell you more about what we do, whether it is in our annual report or our strategic plan, etc.

The Government’s missed opportunity in this Bill in relation to the commission is to make us accountable to you and not to a Government Department—however lovely it is. Obviously it has a different agenda from ours, especially when sometimes we think it is not doing as much as it should be, whether that is about stop and search, equality or human rights.

Q 169

How long has the Equality and Human Rights Commission been in existence?

John Wadham: Five years, since 2007.

Q 170

Not for the first time this afternoon, I am diametrically opposed to the views of the Opposition, who say, basically, “The more we spend in your Department, the more civilised a country we become.” I think that we would become a very civilised country if we did not have to spend any money on having an Equality and Human Rights Commission. What is your view on that? Are you a supporter of the entropy theory, whereby if we do not spend lots of money, or you reduce back, we will become, de facto, a less civilised country? Is that anything that you believe? Where do you sit on that spectrum?

John Wadham: Not surprisingly, I believe that the work we do makes us a better society, in terms of equality and human rights. We try to ensure that what we do is about encouraging good practice and ensuring that people do a better job when they are selecting staff or in their procedures, and that the public sector particularly supports and understands what equality and human rights is about.

Q 171

Have you not now done a lot of the heavy lifting in the first five years? Have you not done all the work, or is it a constant flow that you have to keep quelling? Are people not getting the message?

John Wadham: There is a real issue, which I am sure everyone here understands. We can look around at the number of men here compared with the number of women that perhaps there should be—whether they are MPs or sitting on boards—and at whether they are being paid the same as the rest of us. Our evidence is that they are not being paid the same, and that is not just because they take time off to have children. I have already mentioned stop and search. Significant numbers of people seem to be stopped and searched statistically differently in relation to their race, and there are many other issues, particularly about disability. I have had a whole series of cases about how people with disabilities, particularly those in wheelchairs and others with mobility issues, are treated by airlines.

There is a long list of things that we should collectively, as a society, fix. In a sense, whether we exist to help with that fixing is partly a decision for the Secretary of State, regarding how much money she gives us, but also one  for you. We were set up by Parliament and were given a remit and powers. I think that we are doing a good job. If we were accountable to you, you could ask us more of these detailed questions, but at the moment the bizarre situation is that when you ask a question about us it goes to the Government Equalities Office to answer —it does not go to us.

Q 172

The remit of the Committee is enterprise and regulatory reform and I want to ask specifically about the role of the Equality and Human Rights Commission in relation to that. You will be aware, of course, that something like 60% of public sector employees are women, and there is a greater number of opportunities for people from ethnic communities in that sector. The sector has been reduced by something like 700,000—that is the Government objective—so there will be more diversity and equality issues in small businesses, in terms of generating new opportunities. In that context, do you think that you have something special to bring to the table, given that a lot of the driving force of the Bill is about conciliation, which is what you do?

John Wadham: Conciliation is a good thing. There is little point in taking cases to tribunals if they can be resolved amicably beforehand. That is one of the things that we try to do in relation to disability in our conciliation process. There is little point in punishing people if they have done something bad in terms of equality and human rights; it is better that we all understand what the rules are to begin with. That is one of the approaches that we will take in the future, working with partners and others to ensure that people understand the basis and the logic of the process.

Most people want to treat people fairly, and it is not too difficult to understand why they would believe that. A lot of the issues now are about unintended consequences, whether of equal pay or anything else, so that is what we would want to work on. If we continue to exist and have significant resources to do so, we will make a difference.

Q 173

I guess my point is that if the objective of this part of the Bill is to move away from tribunal-based confrontation and towards upstream conciliation and an understanding of where problems come from—I understand the objective as such from the Government’s point of view, and I think that that is everyone’s point of view—those insights should be in the conciliation arena, because a lot of the problems may come from equality and human rights issues that may be drivers for misunderstanding; you pointed to issues with people working with disabilities and different genders and ethnicities. First, however, I understand that your resource is being cut and, secondly, your rights to engage are being cut. Do you think that that is a lost opportunity and that the Government should be moving in the other direction if they want more conciliation and less confrontation?

John Wadham: The provision that deals with us specifically is a tiny part of a massive Bill.

Q 174

But do you think that you should have a greater share, rather than less?

John Wadham: Of the Bill?

Q 175

Of conciliation.

John Wadham: I think the issue for conciliation is that ACAS does a really good job in conciliation and some of the proposals in the Bill are very good and it should have the resources to do that conciliation. The same degree of conciliation does not exist outside of the employment field. A lot of the cases that we were doing on conciliation concerned individuals who had disputes with service providers, restaurants and banks. It was particularly people with wheelchairs wanting access, although there were other things as well. The remedy that someone has when they allege that a service provider discriminated against them in relation to their disability is to go to the county court. There are lots of reasons why people are anxious about going to county courts. There are internal conciliation processes and small claims procedures that work very well, but many people prefer to have a conciliation process that we pay for, and so do those service providers that have used the service. I do not think that it is particularly important for us to provide the service for conciliation. The issue is who does and that cannot be provided by ACAS, because its service is defined by employment contractual issues, rather than the delivery of services or the absence of services.

Q 176

I was seeking clarification. Do you think that, at the end of the day, this Bill does or does not alter your powers or duties?

John Wadham: This Bill reduces our powers and our remit, but not in a way that we are overly concerned about. One of the issues that we are a little concerned about is the issue of good relations, which is about the development of better relationships between different protected characteristics—groups of people. Some of that work that we do can be derived from our equality remit in any event, so the issues in the Bill are not as significant to us as perhaps they would be. They are a missed opportunity. I have mentioned why we think that there should be more provisions extending our remit and/or ensuring that we are accountable to Parliament and not to a Government Department.

Q 177

A quick question. The Secretary of State on Second Reading, when being questioned on clause 51, said that it was merely an administrative tidying-up. Is that your view on this as well?

John Wadham: I would not quite agree with that, but it is not a significant attack on our remit. There are some things which are unproblematic. Different people have different philosophical views about, for instance, section 3. Section 3 of the current Act, which is being abolished, sets out a vision for a kind of society that I guess most people here would want to live in and that is the primary aim of everything that the commission has to do. If that is abolished, it lowers the vision, but nevertheless, I do not think that it is so problematic, because other parts of the legislation provide sufficient clarity on what our job really is. Again, you can have  arguments about whether it is necessary to keep that vision, but we will carry on doing our job and doing it well, I hope.

Q 178

Just for clarity, you are saying to the Committee that you are comfortable with the changes in clause 51, alongside a 60% cut in your budget.

John Wadham: No, that is not what I am saying.

Q 179

Can you clarify what you are saying?

Very briefly.

That was my question, Chair.

John Wadham: We would prefer to keep the remit we have, so we have not promoted the amendments in the Bill. How much money we are given is not our decision. Whatever large or small amount of money we are given, we will do our best to promote the aims and objectives of the organisation, which are the promotion of equality and human rights. Inevitably, the less money we get, the fewer things we can do.

Q 180

There is a variety of proposals on conciliation and early conciliation, and you heard the debate earlier on settlement agreements. Would you confirm for the Committee that, from an equalities and human rights point of view, nothing that the Government are suggesting or proposing will affect in any way day-one rights as you understand them?

John Wadham: In this Bill, I think that it is a good idea to have ACAS involved in the process as early as possible. I also think that changing the name from “compromises” to “agreements” makes no difference at all. The commission is not opposed to the Bill. As we have said in our notice, there are provisions about early resolution of disputes and issues about giving powers to tribunals to impose financial penalties, all of which are good things.

Q 181

Would you agree with the statement that anyone seeking to raise fears in employees that this will affect their day-one rights would be being untruthful and would not be reflecting the Bill?

John Wadham: Well, I have said what I think the commission thinks about this Bill.

If there are no further questions from Members to the witness, that brings us to the end of our business for the afternoon. I thank Mr Wadham on behalf of the Committee.

Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Jeremy Wright.)

Adjourned till Thursday 21 June at Nine o’clock.