To ask His Majesty’s Government with which organisations they are consulting regarding the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s Code of Practice for Services, Public Functions and Associations.
My Lords, the Minister is following the process in the Equality Act 2006 and is consulting the Scottish and Welsh Ministers. As set out in the Act, the EHRC operates independently of the Government and is responsible for drafting the code and consulting such persons it thinks appropriate. It consulted on the code from 2 October 2024 to 3 January 2025, and again from 20 May 2025 to 30 June 2025 on updates to the code.
I thank the Minister for his reply. By law, the Secretary of State has only two choices: to either lay the code before Parliament or send it back to the EHRC. She has dithered for five months over this binary decision about 11 pages that are at issue. If kicking the can down the road were an Olympic sport, this Government would be favourite for the gold medal. But this is serious: thousands of organisations are desperately waiting for the code of practice to make sure that they comply with the law. When will they get it?
Let us be clear, the updated code was received on 4 September. The draft updated code is undergoing review by policy and legal teams in the Office for Equality and Opportunity. We are reviewing the draft code with the care that it deserves. Any suggestion that the Government are delaying the code is totally inaccurate and unhelpful.
The Minister will be aware that organisations such as the Women’s Institute and Girlguiding have described their current difficulties arising from the draft code as costly and difficult. How will the Government and the EHRC reduce anxiety about the code, so that organisations can act proportionately, inclusively and realistically, rather than facing an uncertain situation in which the main beneficiaries are lawyers and plumbers?
The noble Lord makes a valid point. The EHRC submitted its draft code to Ministers, and we are reviewing it, as I said before, with the care that it deserves. It is crucial that providers have legally robust guidance on how to apply the Equality Act, which is why we are considering the draft code properly. The code will have implications for service providers up and down the country. It is vital that we get this right.
I am grateful to the Chief Whip. The Minister will remember that on 2 February I asked him to confirm whether the Government were in full compliance with the law, as set out by the Supreme Court, across all the public services and functions that they deliver. He gave an unequivocal, one-word answer: “absolutely”. I tabled a Written Question the following day, asking him for the evidential basis for that assertion. That Question is now nearly 10 days overdue, so this delay thing seems to be catching. When will I get an answer to that Question, and is the Minister still prepared to stand by his assertion that the Government are in full compliance with the law across all the public services and functions that Ministers are responsible for delivering?
I will repeat my answer: absolutely. I also responded to the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, who asked a supplementary to the Question. I have taken the precaution of reading the letter received by Maya Forstater, the CEO of Sex Matters, which sets out the reasons for our review of the code. Obviously, the Government are absolutely committed to complying with the law and the judgment of the Supreme Court. There is no doubt about that. But what we want to do, and as we are doing with the EHRC code, is to review all policies. The policy in the code is not about just one issue: it covers a whole range of protected characteristics. Some of the people who are most concerned about the implications of this are people with disabilities. We should be very careful of saying that we must do something straight away. We are complying with the Supreme Court judgment, and we are not going to deviate from that.
My Lords, in the Good Law Project v the EHRC, Mr Justice Swift described the statutory framework as providing a minimum requirement and not a “ceiling”. How will the Government work with the EHRC to ensure that the code reflects this proportionality-based structure?
I thank my noble friend. The really important thing here is our focus on getting this code right. There are implications for a whole range of businesses and people up and down the country. We have set out our expectations that service providers follow the law, as clarified by the For Women Scotland ruling, and seek specialist advice where necessary. But it is for that reason, and that potential legal challenge, that we need to take time to get this properly right, so that the code can be adopted by everyone with confidence that they are following the law.