Deregulation Bill — House of Lords, 2015-02-11
Topic: Civil Rights
Tom McNally (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I am not sure that I can give the same assurance to the Minister about withdrawing my amendment because, as I will try to explain, even the offer he may make—that the Equality and Human Rights Commission will be excluded from future statutory instruments—will not relieve the commission from the sword of Damocles that is hanging over it, as a future Government could bring it within the ambit of this legislation Perhaps I may explain to the House the position and why I think it should take this as an exceptional case and put the commission into this primary legislation. First, I should like to make clear the commission’s current position: "The Commission supports the principle and intention behind the growth duty. We do, and will continue to, exercise our regulatory functions fairly and proportionately, taking all relevant considerations into account—including the impact on businesses and economic growth. However, applying the growth duty to the Commission risks our status as an NHRI"— national human rights institution— "and a National Equality Body and introduces legal uncertainty into the exercise of our functions. We therefore consider that the Commission should be excluded from the scope of the growth duty, as proposed by"— Amendment 44. It continues: "The Commission has the highest possible UN accreditation (‘A status’) as an NHRI rated against the UN ‘Paris Principles’, which clearly and unequivocally require NHRIs to be independent of government" I made sure that I had that clear statement of where the commission itself is in terms of its attitude to this legislation. I should give the House a little background. When the coalition came into office in 2010, there were many criticisms of the EHRC, some justified. Since then the organisation has been refocused, restructured, given a new board and a new leadership in the person of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, who I am pleased to see in her place. During my time as a Minister at the Ministry of Justice I became involved with the EHRC on two fronts: first, in attempting to regain A-list status at the UN, which we had lost; and secondly, regaining Britain’s place on the UN Human Rights Committee. With the help of the FCO and the DCMS, particularly the then Minister Maria Miller, we were able to achieve both. We were able to do that, however, by stressing the independence from government and the integrity of the Equality and Human Rights Commission As noble Lords will be aware, Clause 88 places a legal duty on regulators to have regard to the desirability of promoting economic growth when exercising regulatory functions. The EHRC, as I said, supports that principle. However, when the Joint Committee on Human Rights looked at the matter, it opined that the Bill, "raises serious questions about the EHRC’s independence from the executive" It concluded that the matter could easily be dealt with, "if the proposed new duty did not apply to the EHRC" The committee went on to ask that the EHRC and the Government should continue to negotiate to see whether such a settlement could be reached. As I indicated, no such settlement has been reached. The noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, has gone on record to express her concern about this matter, particularly the threat to our hard-won A status.