I beg to move Amendment No. 3, in page 2, line 6, at end insert—

'(3) During the interim period the members of the Agency shall be appointed by the Secretary of State '.

With this we are to take Amendment No. 6, in Clause 4, page 3, line 36, at end insert—

' (4) During the interim period the members of the Appeals Board shall be appointed by the Secretary of State '.

Perhaps I might be allowed, in moving the first amendment on this Report stage, without incurring your displeasure, Mr. Speaker, to make a brief reference to the progress on earlier stages of the Bill and to say that although my hon. Friends and I remain of the same opinion as to the principle as we made clear on Second Reading, and although we believe, as will appear during our consideration today, that there are a number of major matters in the Bill that still require correction, it would be churlish not to refer to the great care and courtesy with which those speaking for the Government on the Bill handled the debates in detail during 30 hours in Committee.

I think it would be the general wish that, in that connection, I should specially refer to the right hon. Gentleman the previous Minister of State, without any invidious comparison with anyone else, whose absence, again with no imputation against anyone else, we have discovered, we regret from these Northern Ireland debates and the affairs of Northern Ireland. I hope that a similar attitude of open-mindedness and readiness to deal with the natural anxieties of hon. Members will characterise our proceedings today.

The purpose of the amendment is simple. As the Bill is drawn, it assumes that the 1973 Constitution is in force, and the terminology of Clause 1 is drawn accordingly. Of course, it is the case that those expert in the construction of statutes, if they get hold of the 1974 Act, which we may be renewing in a few weeks' time, and work out the meaning of certain paragraphs of the schedule can come to the conclusion that things are not going to happen at all as set out in Clause 1, and that in fact this appointment and the subsequent one to the Fair Employment Appeals Board will be made by the Secretary of State.

It is all very well for the Government to argue that in that case we have nothing to complain about and that they are legally covered by the proper construction of the statutes, and that those who address their minds, with full knowledge of the circumstances, to interpreting Clause 1 will know perfectly well that where they read

"head of the Department of Manpower Services for Northern Ireland"

it really means the Secretary of State, but I put it to the House that in present circumstances that is not the proper way in which to draw a statute.

We ought now to start saying on the face of a statute what we mean and where responsibility is, and that in fact in practice the decision will, very properly, be taken by the Secretary of State. The statute ought to say so, because these statutes are not enacted for the private delectation and consumption of hon. Members, but are designed to be read by large numbers of people, and it is not fair to subject them to the contortion of having to apply to other Acts of Parliament to discover what is really to happen.

I accept that on both sides of the House—and especially on this side—we look forward to a future in which, as with other parts of the United Kingdom, there will be devolution in Northern Ireland. We should look favourably upon anything in a statute that appears to assist or accelerate that development, but there is one fact about future devolution in Northern Ireland that I should have thought could be asserted without the slightest possibility of contradiction or rejection by any side in the political debate, and that is that when it does come about, as assuredly it will, it will not come about under the 1973 Act.

In fact, the Secretary of State himself candidly stated that shortly after he came to office he recognised that, to use the phrase of a former Prime Minister, the 1973 Act that had been bequeathed to him was a dead duck. The form in which this and other clauses are drafted does not even have the merit that we are able to say that perhaps one happy day it will happen that the clause as it is at present worded will apply. It simply is unrealistic—and I do not believe that this is a politically controversial statement—to go on drafting statutes in the terms of the 1973 Act.

We shall certainly support—and this was part of our debate at an early hour this morning—the desirability of preserving a certain continuity against the time when there is again whatever form of devolution there is to be in Northern Ireland. But that cannot be an excuse for writing into statutes procedures and terminology which we all know to be obsolete and permanently obsolete. I ask the Government to take that into account. I am asking them to take it into account in relation to the Bill. I am asking them to take that into account from now onwards in drafting statutes and Orders in Council applying to Northern Ireland.

As I resume my seat and place the amendment before the House, may I make one other observation about our proceedings today? One of the advantages of our bicameral system is that even at Report stage there can still usually be maintained the well understood co-operative relations between the opposite sides of the House whereby matters can be ventilated and without the Government indicating there and then their compliance and without the Government taking up a rigid position, nevertheless there is a stage out beyond when the matter can be dealt with again.

We are not, since this is a House of Lords Bill, to have that advantage in today's proceedings. Lest I should be thought to be calling in question the desirability of sharing the load of legislation between the two Houses—indeed I think that it is useful that appropriate statutes should first make their appearance in another place—I will add that circumstances would be different if, as on many other matters, Northern Ireland and the balance of opinion in Northern Ireland were represented by active members of another place. If that were so, there would be a common point of view taken in opposition by representatives of Northern Ireland in both Houses. As it is, however, we are effectively deprived —and certainly my hon. Friends and I will bear that in mind during today's proceedings—of an opportunity to look again.

I ask the Minister of State to accept that the clause ought to bear upon its face the statement of how it is really going to be operated. Whatever he says in reply to that. I ask him to give an indication that he has taken the principle on board for the future.

The right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) would be more surprised than anybody—if possibly delighted—if I accepted the amendment. As he said towards the end of his comments, he was deploying a wide constitutional argument. We are proceeding within the 1973 situation as adapted by the 1974 Northern Ireland Act, which falls to be renewed. A wide range of powers have to be exercised in that way under a wide variety of legislative provisions.

The right hon. Gentleman will therefore agree that it would be inappropriate for the Government to accept an amendment which would make an exception in respect of a particular narrow and separate group of appointments to the Fair Employment Agency and the appeals board. Nevertheless, he deployed an interesting constitutional argument.

Whilst I do not accept as a general principle that lay people can be in a position to understand statutes without legal advice, I am fully seized of the point that, so far as we can, legislation should be simple and without unnecessary complications. That will be considered by my right hon. Friend generally, but there are many difficulties in these matters and I am giving no undertaking that we can meet the right hon. Gentleman on that point. We want to retain the Bill as it is without the amendment, for the reasons I have stated.

Despite the large number of amendments, I hope that at the end of the day the Bill will be well on its way to becoming an Act and applying to Northern Ireland. It is therefore important that the Fair Employment Agency has a chairman to start it on its way. To ease some of the doubts expressed, I can say that the Secretary of State has taken a keen personal interest in the matter and that, after surveying all the people available, we have decided to appoint Mr. Robert Cooper, the deputy leader of the Alliance Party at one time, as the new chairman of the agency. He will be regarded as an able person with many of the qualifications which are necessary for the job. I wish him well in the job, which I am sure he will do well. I understand that he is giving up political activity as a result of the appointment.

Perhaps in the rather relaxed atmosphere of a Friday morning sitting I may be allowed to follow the Minister of State in his last announcement. It would not be right for personalities from outside the House—at any rate normally—to be canvassed in debate and that is not what I am intending to do. But I want to put on record an observation which I hope will carry the Government's approval.

Many of the institutions which we are setting up—and we set up another in the debate earlier today—will succeed, indeed, will avoid doing harm, only if they are above suspicion and if the motivation of those who operate them is regarded as unpolitical, unbiased and unprejudiced. It is a convention in our affairs in the United Kingdom as a whole that wherever those qualities are required we assume that they cannot be donned like a mantle immediately by a person after leaving political activity.

The Minister will be aware that there is often criticism that judicial and other appointments are made directly from political life and that there are certain conventions which are designed to interpose an airlock between political activity and service to the State which requires to be non-partisan. It is very difficult. if appointments are to be made direct from active political life, for that principle to be applied where it is especially important—in Northern Ireland.

Even if the individual concerned can succeed—and no doubt he would always try—in divesting his mind of all former forensic and other commitments, he will not be believed to have done so, and consequently motives will be attributed and interpretations placed upon the operations of the institution which may be quite baseless but which will be realities in their own right. All who have to do with Northern Ireland know how powerful is the sway of assumption about other people's motives.

I shall content myself with saying that the Minister of State must not assume that the sudden transfer from political life to a position such as that of chairman of the agency which the Bill sets up carries with it the approval of hon. Members on this side of the House, or is accepted as wise. We hope that in future, in balancing all the factors which he must balance, the Secretary of State will give more attention to the necessity of putting a dividing line between political life and other service to the State than he appears to have done in this case.

I apologise, Mr. Speaker, for having followed the Minister of State in perhaps somewhat broadening the ambit of the debate. In asking the leave of the House to withdraw the amendment, I note that the Minister of State included the plea which I made for future drafting changes among the many matters which his right hon. Friend would be considering in the context of the renewal of the powers under the 1974 Act. That is some little comfort, and upon that basis I beg to ask withdraw the amendment.

rose——

If any hon. Member seeks to speak, it will not be possible to withdraw the amendment.

I beg to move Amendment No. 5, in page 3, line 27, leave out Clause 4.

With this we may take the following amendments:

No. 38, in Clause 13, page 10, line 38, leave out 'by the Appeals Board'.

No. 39, in Clause 14, page 11, line 7, leave out 'Appeals Board ' and insert ' County Court'.

No. 41, in page 11, line 19, leave out 'Appeals Board' and insert 'court'.

No. 42, in page 11, line 24, leave out 'Appeals Board' and insert 'court'.

No. 43, in page 11, line 29, leave out 'Appeals Board' and insert 'court'.

No. 47, in Clause 15, page 12, line 10, leave out 'Appeals Board' and insert 'court'.

No. 48, in page 12, line 15, leave out 'Appeals Board' and insert 'court'.

No. 49, in page 12, line 25, leave out 'Appeals Board' and insert 'court'.

No. 83, in page 48, line 18, leave out Schedule 2.

It is with considerably less enthusiasm than I felt five minutes ago that I rise to speak to the amendment, after hearing the last few comments of the Minister of State. Nevertheless, I shall do my best.

Clause 4 and Schedule 2 set up a body to be known as the Fair Employment Appeals Board, which will have a semi-judicial function and will have two very limited aspects. It will be to that board that an employer will appeal if he feels aggrieved at having his name removed from the Register of Fair Employers. It will also be to that board that an employer will appeal if he feels that the directions made by the agency have been unfair.

In all our deliberations on the Bill we have tried to tidy it up, to reduce its costs and to do away with anything that is unnecessary. We feel that it is unnecessary that there should be two separate and distinct appeals procedures under the Bill. There is the board, which deals with those two very limited and specific matters, and later there is the appeal to the county court against an allegation that an employer has been guilty of discrimination.

We believe that the two appeals can be equally well dealt with by the county court. By accepting the amendments, the Government would do away with this extra body. We already have enough such bodies. If the Minister does away with it, at least he will not have the embarrassment of announcing another name which will be greeted with horror on these Benches. As it is a matter of some importance and has some bearing on the whole question of deciding what is discrimination and what is not, the decision can, we feel, be left to the county court.

When he was Under-Secretary, the Minister of State told us in Committee, on 9th March, as reported at column 122 of Hansard, that the decisions of the appeals board "do have legal effect". If they are to have legal effect, why cannot they be made by the county court?

We have some sympathy with the argument of the hon. Member for Armagh (Mr. McCusker). I always have a slight sinking of the heart when I hear that yet another new board or bureaucratic institution is to be set up. There is something to be said for uniformity, and there is more to be said for avoiding the setting up of additional machinery of this kind. But there are strong contrary arguments.

The hon. Gentleman does not want to have distinct appeals procedures, but there are two distinct matters which would be the subject of appeal. The Bill provides for an agency for the promotion of

"equality of opportunity in employments and occupations".

That is one object. Secondly, the Bill outlaws certain kinds of discrimination

"on the ground of religious belief or political opinion",

as defined in Parts II and III.

The promotion of "equality of opportunity" is something rather nebulous. At any rate, it is less readily justiciable and involves the pseudo-philosophical declaration of intent about which there was considerable debate and about which there are amendments on the Notice Paper. It involves the Register of Equal Opportunity Employers and Organisations and all the rest.

To allow county courts rather than a specialised appeal body to become involved in disputes over the removal of names from the register, or the refusal to restore names to the register, seems to us likely to be confusing and to add to rather than diminish bureaucracy.

Part II has more of an administrative than a legal character. It does not seem to us appropriate for courts of justice to hear appeals concerning patterns and trends of employment, as would be required if the amendments were accepted. These questions are better kept out of the courts.

I was disappointed by the last words which fell from the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mr. Biggs-Davison). It seemed to me that he had initially seized what I think is the main point here—the natural presumption against the creation of additional machinery where that is not necessary. Those of us who in Committee ploughed through all the minutiae of the establishment of the Fair Employment Agency, which is the heart of the Bill, do not relish the same procedure being applied all over again—expenses, allowances, employees, conditions of service and so on—to an appeals board unless that board is strictly necessary.

I fancy that, even in the three months since we were considering those clauses in Committee, public opinion in this country and probably opinion in the House have moved more strongly still against superfluous bureaucratic agencies. I find myself very much in support of the criticisms which come from the Government side of the House of the new structures in local government which were created by a previous Parliament. There is a general prejudice today against looking with starlit eyes of hope towards newly-invented tribunals, agencies and boards. The day of the board is waning, and I trust that its sun is setting.

Therefore, in considering the arguments put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Armagh (Mr. McCusker), the House must address itself to the following simple question. Is it really essential to have a new board—admittedly a judicial board, to judge from its composition—to do a job which can be carried out by a well-known, accepted, existing judicial authority?

12 noon.

I accept that there is a distinction between the nature of Part II, whence appeals would go to the board, and Part III. Part III appeals ultimately relate to alleged or real individual cases of discrimination and injury, whereas Part II appeals are against behaviour on the part of the agency which might be regarded as unreasonable and unjustifiable. To that extent there is a difference in the nature of the function, but there is something more important than the difference which constitutes the underlying similarity and claim for hearing in a court of law. In both cases, under Parts II and III, the citizen is trying to protect himself against injury by proving that that injury would be unjustified.

My hon. Friend the Member for Armagh has pointed to the two clauses. There are only two. We are really setting up a new board to hear appeals under two clauses of one part of the Bill. The two cases are, first, appeals against removal of name from or refusal to restore name to the register and, secondly, appeals against unreasonable directions issued under Part II by the Fair Employment Agency. In both instances the action being taken by the agency will injure the person against whom it is taken. There would be no point in removing his name from the register unless it were to be a disadvantage. There would be no point in issuing directions to him unless those directions were going to constrain him to take steps which he would not otherwise voluntarily take. Those are the two instances in which appeals ultimately lie in Part II to the board.

The central point is that these are just as much cases where the citizen has the right to prove that he is being unreasonably damnified as any of the instances under Part III. Therefore, the natural conclusion is that the ordinary courts of law are perfectly capable of deciding upon reasonableness and justification under Part II as under Part III.

What is more, the courts will have to deal with the same kind of evidence. The court which is hearing appeals will have to hear witnesses who will establish what was done to an individual employee, what the employer did or did not do, committed or omitted, in alleged contravention of the requirements of Part III. But that is what the court will have to do under Part II, and that is exactly what the appeals board will have to do. It will have to say to the agency "What reason have you got for removing or purporting to remove this firm's name from the register?"

I hope that it will be no good the agency saying to the appeals board "We do not like his face, we do not like the name of his firm, or we have an uneasy feeling about this chap." That will not do. It will have to say "We ask you to consider the following instances of behaviour by this firm. These instances of behaviour by this firm which have come to our notice have led us to the conclusion that he is not complying with the declaration, and consequently his name ought to be removed from the register."

It will be exactly the same propositions, the same allegations and the same rebuttals to which the appeals board is directing itself in Part II as those to which the courts will be directing themselves on appeals in Part III. The mere fact that the context of those appeals is different in Part II from the context in Part III does not alter the nature of the appeals or the suitability of the county court for determining them.

The Minister of State, the hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. Concannon), caused a surge of hope in our hearts when, after deploying these arguments in Committee, as reported at column 124, he set out once again the point which I have made, but shown to be irrelevant, about the different context in Parts II and III. The Minister, evidently impressed, said:

"Clearly, from what has been said from the Opposition Benches, we shall consider very carefully the views put forward without saying that we could or would alter it."—[Official Report, Standing Committee H, 9th March 1976; c. 124.]

The Government have now had an opportunity to consider this matter. It is clear that they believe that there is a case. I ask them to accept that there is a presumption against creating new machinery where existing machinery will work. I am sure that this will appeal to the Treasury. If I could invoke the Treasury on this argument——it is not for me to imagine what minutes may have passed between the Northern Ireland Office and Her Majesty's Treasury—I know which side it would be on. The Treasury knows that the setting up of a new appeals board—it may be the most curmudgeonly appeals board one could imagine—means additional expense. It means an increase in staff and an increase in expenditure of all kinds.

Therefore, the Northern Ireland Office will be serving the general purposes of the Government, as well as complying with the increasing mood of public opinion, if it recognises—there is no shame in such recognition, especially after what the Minister said in Committee—that this job can be done with the machinery that we have. If it is done with the machinery that we have, the cost will be nil. That should be made clear.

The mere fact that an additional two or three appeals will be heard by a county court somewhere, apart from giving a greater sense of satisfaction to the appellant, whichever way the decision goes, would add nothing whatsoever to the cost of the administration of justice or of administration generally in Northern Ireland.

I trust that the Government will show that their second thoughts have been wiser and that they will comply with the appeal that has been addressed to them by my hon. Friend the Member for Armagh.

There is a philosophy abroad that the way to solve all the problems in Northern Ireland is not by election but by selection and the multiplication of boards. We have had this in every stratum of our society. However, it is not for me to go into that matter, because I should no doubt be ruled out of order.

We are saying that the proposed appeals board is not necessary. We have the real kernel for appeal in the county court. Instead of going to the first appeal system, why not go directly to the final appeal system? That is the nub of the whole argument today.

I did not serve as a member of the Committee, but I pay tribute to those of my colleagues who spent so much time on this Bill in Committee. It shows that Northern Ireland Members are trying to make a vital contribution for the betterment of this legislation, with which we do not agree. However, as parliamentarians we are prepared to do our bit to try to make it as acceptable as possible and to make it a machine which can be operated.

I am sure that those who have read the report of our proceedings will have noted that the Minister said that he would look closely at this. He underlined the point that he thought there was weight behind the argument. I ask the Minister of State to tell us why the arguments that evidently carried weight with his hon. Friend are now to be rejected.

No. He intends to accept them.

I am glad that hope is rising within my right hon. Friend's heart. If the Government intend to accept the arguments, well and good. If not, we should know what are the arguments which have led them to reject this point of view.

Following the announcement of the name of the chairman of the agency, I feel that in Northern Ireland there will be those who will think that by having that gentleman in that position the agency will have a difficult time convincing people that it will act in an impartial manner.

We have illustrated the fact that selection of boards seems to be the only philosophy that this House can put forward to solve the problems of Northern Ireland.

This has been a long-running Bill. It has been twice in Committee in the other place. Amendments were tabled to this clause in the other place. It has had a Second Reading and a long, detailed Committee stage in this House. All in all, the Bill has had a pretty thorough going-over. We were not dogmatic in Committee. We listened to and accepted many of the points put to us. In some cases we promised to have another look at an issue without commitment.

It is unfortunate that the first two groups of amendments have come forward in this way, because there are many Government amendments that have been tabled specifically to meet the point made in Committee. I pay tribute to those who worked on the Bill in Committee. It is a better Bill as a result of their scrutiny.

After much thought, we have not been able to meet hon. Gentlemen on this point. There was disagreement about this matter in Committee. Looking through the Committee reports, I find that after three attempts to explain the situation I seem to have returned to the original defence of the clause and the appeals board. When we left Clause 4 I said that I would look at this point again. By the time we reached Clause 14 we had done so. We thought it best to leave the appeals board as it is.

The normal function of a court is to consider whether actions are consistent with the law. The function of the appeals board is to hear appeals against directions issued by the agency under Clause 13. These are directions to secure equality of opportunity. They will stipulate certain actions designed to achieve that end. Until a direction has been issued, there is no statutory duty on the employer to take such action. The purpose of the appeal is to determine not whether the respondent is in breach of the statutory duty but whether he ought to be given one.

This is essentially a matter not of law but of policy, which is not readily justiciable. The grounds on which an appeal may be made against a direction by the agency are that in all the circumstances it is unreasonable to expect the appellant to comply with the directions, that compliance with the direction would not have the effect of securing equality of opportunity or that the appellant is already affording equality of opportunity and the direction is therefore unnecessary.

The body hearing appeals on such grounds will require practical knowledge and expertise on employment problems and situations rather than a detailed knowledge of the law.

12.15 p.m.

We have heard already today about the good work being done by tribunals in other areas in Northern Ireland. I see this one working on the same lines. The appeals board will contain persons drawn from outside industry as well as from the law. The difference between appeals to the Fair Employment Appeals Board under Part II of the Bill and under Part III to the county courts, is that in Part III the appeals will be against the findings by the agency of unlawful discrimination. Under Part II the appeal will be made to the board rather than to the court because a review of the directions can be termed to be balancing different policy considerations rather than applying the law to determine facts.

Might I draw the Minister's attention to the function of the appeals board in conjunction with Clause 8, which surely cannot be a matter of policy. It must be an application to a specific case of the implications of the statute.

In the final analysis the right hon. Gentleman is correct. The enforcement of directions issued by the agency can be achieved only by invoking the courts. The courts would not, however, enforce directions that were inconsistent with the terms of the Act. We have gone into this in great detail. I would not want there to be two appeal bodies when one would suffice. It is better to have the tribunal system than to use the courts. We have met hon. Members on many points. I am sorry that we cannot meet them on this one.

The hon. Gentleman has paid tribute to the tribunals operating in Northern Ireland. I wonder whether, in the interests of saving money, there could be a pooling of staff and administrative facilities between the appeals board and some other body. Is this under consideration by the Northern Ireland Office?

We shall certainly not be looking for extra finance. We shall wish to keep a tight control on spending.

Can the Minister tell us whether legal aid will be available to those who appear before the appeals board?

I assume that the same system will obtain as obtains with any tribunal. Legal aid as such is not available.

We appreciate that the Minister and his officials have gone into this matter in depth but we, too, have given it serious consideration. Under Part III the court must decide whether an employer has been guilty of an unlawful act against an employee by reason of religious discrimination. That would be a specific instance of someone making a specific complaint against an employee. That is not the situation under Part II, under which the agency may come to virtually the same conclusion about an employer. There may not be an allegation of religious discrimination made against the employer, but the agency may come to the conclusion that he is guilty of certain practices.

As that is the decision to be made in both instances—whether it is a question of an individual making a complaint, or whether it is a matter of judgment on whether the agency has been right in making an allegation against the employer—since they are basically the same thing, a court should make that judgment. For that reason, we shall press the amendment to a Division.

I beg to move, Amendment No. 7, in page 3, line 40, after 'Rights', insert:

'the Parliamentary Commissioner, the Commissioner for Complaints'.

With this we are to take Government Amendment No. 8, in page 3, line 40, leave out', the Agency and' and insert:

and the Agency, with such organisations appearing to it to be representative of employers, or organisations of workers, and of persons engaged in occupation in Northern Ireland as it thinks fit, and with'.

My colleagues and I have contended that the Parliamentary Commissioner and the Commissioner for Complaints ought to have assumed many of the responsibilities now given to the Fair Employment Agency. We did so in the interest of opposition to a superfluity of boards and agencies, and also because we thought that the Parliamentary Commissioner was eminently suitable to deal with questions of fairness and equality. So our concern, and indeed alarm, at the omission of the Parliamentary Commissioner and the Commissioner for Complaints from the body compiling the guide to manpower policy and practice was genuine.

We contend that there is no inherent quality in the Advisory Commission on Human Rights which can be regarded as a reason for its inclusion, and that certainly there is no reason for the exclusion of the Parliamentary Commissioner and the Commissioner for Complaints. It is our belief that the experience which has been developed over the years would stand the commissioners in good stead to assist in the compilation of the guide to manpower policy and practice.

In another place it was suggested that the Parliamentary Commissioner and the Commissioner for Complaints could not be impartial in this matter—for example, if they were involved in compiling the guide and could later be involved in some sort of appeal, they could not be impartial. As the final appeal is made to a court we do not see that as a great problem. We beg the Government to accept the amendment.

Both amendments are designed to solve the problem of whom the Department of Manpower Services should consult when compiling the code of good manpower practice which is a feature of the Bill. The Government had always intended that the Department should consult the representatives of employers and trade unions in compiling the code. This point was made by hon. Members opposite in Standing Committee. We accepted it and Amendment No. 8 is designed to meet it.

Our argument on Amendment No. 7 is that it is unnecessary. We acept everything that the hon. Gentleman has said about the fine qualities of the Parliamentary Commissioner and the Commissioner for Complaints and the eminent desirability of those gentlemen with regard to the consideration of questions of fairness and equality in the context of Northern Ireland. We have the highest regard for both of them. They are not explicitly referred to in the Bill because both are ex officio members of the Human Rights Commission. The Bill commits the Department to consult the commission in compiling a code, and, therefore, the Parliamentary Commissioner and the Commissioner for Complaints will have every opportunity to give the Department the benefit of their experience.

In the light of this explanation, I hope that the House will accept Amendment No. 8 and that we are in practice meeting the spirit of Amendment No. 7.

We are pleased that the Minister of State has accepted our point of view with regard to the inclusion of representatives

"of employers, of organisations of workers, and of persons engaged in occupation in Northern Ireland."

but if the Government insert the words of Amendment No. 8 after "the Agency" in page 3, line 40, it is not clear whether the word "it" in the amendment refers to the agency or to the Department. This is a drafting point, but it should be made clear whether "it" means the agency or the Department. As the amendment is drafted, "it" appears to be the agency. Is that correct?

We are deleting the words "the Agency and" and inserting the words in Amendment No. 8.

But the wording is

"and the Agency, with such organisations appearing to it to be representative."

There is force in my point. "Is "it" the Department or the Agency? Clause 5 begins with the words "The Department". It is certainly not clear whether "it" refers to the Department or the agency.

The Department is the body concerned.

The Act which established the Parliamentary Commissioner and the later legislation which set up the machinery of the Commissioner for Complaints reached the statute book at a time when I was serving on various local authorities. One must confess that at that time one felt a certain degree of reservation. Perhaps the feeling of myself and my colleagues in, for example, my county council was that we did not particularly want people to meddle and interfere in the smooth working of what we regarded as reasonably perfect machinery, not because we had anything to hide but because we feared, mistakenly as it has turned out, that such meddling would gum up the works and place additional strains on our staff.

I freely admit that I was mistaken in that belief and in my opposition to the setting-up of the Parliamentary Commissioner and the Commissioner for Complaints. My experience has shown that the very fact that these institutions exist ensures that appointment panels take every precaution to see that the correct procedures are followed in matters such as advertising, obtaining references, conducting interviews, and so forth.

Perhaps I should refer to those two gentlemen by their office rather than as individuals. They are in a position to give valuable advice because, machinery having been established which is comparatively simple in its operation, no legal representation is necessary in the submissions laid before the Commissioner for Complaints from one's constituents. It is true that the holders of those two offices at the present time, in an ex officio capacity, will be consulted, but I feel that their offices ought to be written into the Bill. They ought to be named and included by their offices in the legislation before the House today, because in the course of years the commissioners will have had before them a vast number of complaints alleging discrimination. They will be in a unique position to assess the value of such complaints.

I feel, therefore, that Amendment No. 7 ought to be supported. I hope the Minister of State will agree to our simple request that the two offices should be included in the Bill.

I support the amendment moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Bradford). We would like the Ombudsman and the other officer to be included in the Bill as of right and not because they are ex officio members of another body. After all, the clause deals with preparing and causing to be published a code of good manpower policy and practice, and this eminent official has been carrying out a very useful service in Northern Ireland. I would differ from my hon. Friend the Leader of the United Ulster Unionist Group. I supported the appointment of this particular officer from the beginning because I believe that this is a deterrent. If the boards know that there is an immediate appeal in respect of appointments they might make, they are careful to keep within the guidelines laid down, and that is a very good thing.

Can the Minister of State confirm that when he talks about "organisations of workers" this relates to trade unions only, or does it mean, as set out in the interpretation at the back of the Bill, "any society"? Would that include an organisation like the Ulster Workers' Council, which is a very powerful body in Northern Ireland?

With the leave of the House I should like to reply. I agree with everything that the hon. Members for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) and Antrim, South (Mr. Molyneaux) have said about the usefulness of the Parliamentary Commissioner and the Commissioner for Complaints and the desirability that they should be consulted as of right. The fact is that as members of the Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights they will be consulted as of right. Everything which goes to the Human Rights Commission will go to those particular officials, and they will be able to have their say as of right on all the matters upon which their advice could be helpful in this connection.

May I turn the argument on its head a little? While we appreciate the point about the Ombudsman and the Commissioner for Complaints being ex officio members of the Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights, what we are questioning is the inclusion of that Commission. We are saying that the Ombudsman and the Commissioner for Complaints ought to be named instead or certainly alongside.

That may well be the hon. Gentleman's point of view, but that is not the effect that his amendment would have. It would add the Parliamentary Commissioner and the Commissioner for Complaints. That is not really the point we are discussing, although the hon. Gentleman is entitled to argue that point of view.

Another point to be remembered is that we would be specifically singling out the Parliamentary Commissioner and the Commissioner for Complaints among the membership of the Standing Advisory Commission for Human Rights, and it could be argued that we should also single out the chairman of the commission or other members such as the secretary. That would get us into very deep water. What the hon. Gentleman wants is adequately catered for by what is in the Bill.

I think that the arguments advanced by Opposition Members are not worth much importance. I know the Parliamentary Commissioner in Northern Ireland and, like many people there, including some hon. Members opposite, I have great faith in his concern about what is happening in the various offices which he holds. If one were to get a record of the meetings which have taken place of the Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights, one would clearly find that Stephen McGonagle has been there on each and every occasion. To include his name would mean his involvement not because of his membership of the Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights, but in his capacity as Parliamentary Commissioner. There is only one Parliamentary Commissioner and I have absolutely no doubt that, with the interest he has shown in the offices he holds, he will certainly be there when the commission, the agency or the Ministry wants to consult the Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights. The present commissioner will certainly be there.

Amendment No. 8, to which the Minister of State is also speaking, is the first of a series that we shall have before us which represent a genuine and largely successful attempt by the Government to meet a number of different points of varying weight that were put forward in Committee. Certainly the Minister of State is facing a classic problem here, because the clause as it originally stood included the words

"such other persons as he thinks fit".

Having once got a phrase like that into a clause, all kinds of identifications occur to all kinds of people as to whom the agency not only might think fit but does think fit. Therefore, at whatever point one decides to stop, one will always be leaving people out.

The Government have covered representatives of industry and employers, and I think it right that they should appear in the Bill. However, I do not think that the argument put forward by the Minister of State in relation to Amendment No. 7 was entirely cogent on the ground that the Parliamentary Commissioner is a member of the Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights, because he holds a separate office and a separate function as Parliamentary Commissioner and Commissioner for Complaints, and there is an inherent attraction in specifying an office even though the holder of that office is also a member of another body. We should recognise that in this kind of drafting perfection is not available and also that the experience of the Parliamentary Commissioner will certainly, one way or another, be fed into the deliberations of the agency. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Bradford) might think it right to withdraw his amendment now that the matter has been ventilated.

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

I beg to move Amendment No. 9, in page 4, line 12, leave out from 'afforded,' to the end of line 13 and insert:

'shall have such regard to the recommendations contained in the guide as it considers proper in all the circumstances'.

With this we may take Government Amendments Nos. 21 and 45. We shall also take the following amendments:

No. 20, in Clause 8, page 5, line 40, Leave out 'may' and insert 'shall, among other matters.'.

No. 44, in Clause 14, page 11, line 29, leave out 'may' and insert ' shall, among other matters,'.

Having decided how we should compile our code of good manpower practice, we have to decide how we shall actually use it. The Bill as drafted suggested that the Fair Employment Agency might refer to or use the manpower code. It was felt that having gone to such lengths to provide the code there should be a greater obligation on the agency and upon the appeals board to make use of the code.

The Government were impressed in Standing Committee with the arguments advanced, and we have tabled amendments to meet the position in so far as we can both in respect of the agency and the appeals board. Opposition hon. Members have tabled amendments relating to the appeals board. Broadly speaking, the Government amendments provide that the code shall be applied in appropriate circumstances. The Opposition amendments argue in respect of the appeals board that the code shall be applied, but that other considerations may be taken into account, and that might lead to modification of the pure provisions of the code. There is not a great deal between the two sides.

The Opposition amendments would have been more appropriate to the Fair Employment Agency which has been consulted in drawing up the code. Therefore it might be considered to have a greater obligation to apply that code in the conduct of its business. Unfortunately, hon. Gentlemen have not tabled an amendment in respect of the agency. They have tabled a slightly tougher amendment than ours in respect of the appeals board, but the board is much more of a quasi-judicial body than the Fair Employment Agency, and it would be much sounder to accept our proposals in respect of the appeals board.

I hope that the House will accept our proposals that there shall be an obligation on the agency and the board to have regard to the code in circumstances where that is appropriate. It was argued in Standing Committee that there should be standardisation of nomenclature wherever possible, and there will be standardisation throughout Clauses 5, 8 and 14 if our amendments are accepted.

The Minister of State was here confronted with another classic crux for draftsmen. Having got the guide and having made it statutory, he had to decide what to do with it. Was he to say that people may use it, in which case what was the point of the exercise if it was to be take it or leave it? Or was he to say that they shall use it, in which case it would become tantamount to a statute? We have all been hovering on one side or another of that dilemma in these debates with our attempted amendments. I think that the Government have it about as near right as it can be got in resolving the inherent dilemma with this kind of statutory guide.

I think that we would accept the proposition of the Minister of State that what we want is that where in the judgment of the agency—and it must mean its judgment because we cannot enforce it in every case—the recommendations of the guide are relevant, those recommendations shall prevail, and that the behaviour of the agency shall conform to that. I do not think we shall get it any better than that, and I hope that my hon. Friends will agree that we should accept the amendments.

I beg to move Amendment No. 10, in page 4, line 24, at end insert:

'(3) The Declaration shall be in the form set out in Schedule (Declaration of Principle and Intent) or in such other form to the like effect as the Agency specifies as being appropriate for any particular declarant.'

With this we shall take Government Amendment No. 82.

We reach the stage in the Bill where the Government were defeated in Standing Committee. The defeat was designed to remove subsection (3) of the clause, but the true attack at that stage was not on this fairly innocuous wording but on the schedule attached to it. It is accepted that employers will be asked to make a declaration in the form of the schedule as a way of obtaining the appropriate certificate issued by the Fair Employment Agency.

I hope that in restoring subsection (3) we shall not be regarded as ignoring the setback we suffered in Committee but that attention will be focused on the declaration set out in the new schedule. I hope it will be agreed that we have gone a long way to meet the points made by Opposition Members about the schedule.

The wording has been tautened considerably. It means that unfair discrimination and equality of opportunity are now spoken of in terms specifically in these provisions as defined by the Acts rather than as generalised philosophical principles. I hope that this will lead to greater clarity in the administration of the Bill when it is passed and that the amendments will be accepted.

We very much welcome the response of the Minister of State to the defeat which the Government suffered in Standing Committee. The hon. Gentleman has throughout been courteous and helpful to hon. Members who have been seeking to improve the Bill. The new schedule setting out the revised declaration of principle and intent is an improvement on the original.

One of the points that were made from this side in Committee was that it was quite wrong to ask a citizen to enter into an undertaking or sign a declaration that he would not break the terms of a statute. Therefore, although I applaud the improvement in the wording, I should much prefer the word "letter" to be taken out in the second line of the draft declaration so that it would run

"according to the spirit of the Fair Employment (Northern Ireland) Act 1976"

rather than that reference to the letter of the statute should be there incorporated.

The Government's amendment will allow the agency to prescribe an alternative form to that which is in the schedule. I hope that the point I have made will be considered by the Minister of State and that appropriate action will be taken in the agency, because it can no longer be taken in this House.

It is wonderful what a salutary effect a defeat from time to time can have upon an Administration. I hope that that observation will not be ill taken by Ministers who, in this instance, have been very sensitive to the criticisms advanced of the previous wording of the schedule and have been extremely cooperative in arriving at wording to satisfy the scruples of all concerned.

That co-operation was facilitated by the fact that there was a hole in the Bill and something had to be put in it. It is always easier to put something one wants into a hole which has been provided than to have to knock out one's own words first. The Government were assisted because they were provided with the hole. What they have implanted in it seems to have justified our objections to the schedule as originally drafted.

It is surely objectionable in any circumstances that a citizen should be asked to subscribe to a promise that he will not break the law—particularly in Northern Ireland, where far too much is said in condemnation of breaches of the law or assertion of an intention to keep the law which would be more convincing if it were unsaid.

There is a proverb,

"Beware of the man who says he is honest."

If he is really honest, he is unlikely go round saying that he is honest. I confess to a certain uneasy feeling when I hear politicians and others in Northern Ireland condemning actions which it should go without saying that they condemn since they are breaches of the law. Unlike the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mr. Biggs-Davison), I think that the Government have removed that blemish entirely from the new schedule. It is not for me to form suspicions or theories about the parentage of any part of the redrafted schedule, although the adjective "taut" applied to it was a particularly apt description.

The hon. Member for Epping Forest objected to the reference to "the letter" because he said that it brought in the problem we were trying to solve and that everybody has to obey the letter of the law. However, I think that the hon. Member failed to notice another change which the Government have made in the wording of the declaration. The phrase in which "the letter" occurs qualifies the words "promote and protect".

Of course, everybody is obliged to obey the letter of the law, and we should not be asked to promise to obey the letter of the law. But we are not obliged to promote obedience to the letter of the law. No doubt the Rood citizen will seek to do so, but it is not part of his obligation.

We are asking employers in this newly-drafted schedule to do something over and above what the law requires—not merely to comply with the law themselves, but to do something in addition in promoting and protecting fulfilment of the letter and the spirit of the law. I do not believe that the objection can fairly be urged that we are requesting the citizen to make a declaration which no self-respecting person should make.

We owe a word of thanks not only to the Government as represented here today but to the previous Minister of State, who applied his mind especially to the problem of this schedule.

Only the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) could have made the speech we have just heard. He started by saying that an occasional defeat for an Administration was very salutary, but he was saying this on the Friday after the Wednesday when he and his colleagues carefully sat in their places to make sure that no such thing should occur.

Perhaps I should emphasise the word "occasional" which occurred in my statement. There is a time for all things. There is a time for defeating a Government, a time for letting them get away with it and even a time for ensuring that, if they appear to be preferable to any immediately available alternative Administration, they are able to remain in office.

I hope that the House will allow an hon. Member who is honest and who has proclaimed his honesty to continue.

We all have our own point of view and will draw our own conclusions. No doubt there is a sense of humour in the Elysian fields, and the gods must be rolling about on the lawns in merriment.

Consider the enormous irony in the two amendments, which I hope will be passed. On the one hand we have bitter, deeply-felt opposition to the principles of the Bill and on the other hand, as an open secret which was clearly revealed to all those who can interpret these matters, the revelation that the drafting of the schedule came from the pen of the right hon. Member for Down, South. This is a central declaration. It is the wording which will strike most people most often. Yet its author is one who, morning after morning, has snapped and snarled his opposition to the Bill to which he has contributed. What a supreme irony, even though I welcome the change.

The most Catholic-hating, bigoted Protestant can sign the document without difficulty because he will consider that it comes from an honoured pen. His opposite number, who most assuredly exists—the bigoted, Protestant-hating Catholic—will think that if it is drafted by a Unionist of this sort it is safe and sound.

I add my congratulations to the right hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme) and send good wishes to him in his new job, however short a time he and the Government may be in office. The right hon. Gentleman brought about this situation. I watched him in Committee and admired his technique. He baited his hook with the fly of compliment and cast it over the right hon. Member for Down, South, who simpered and smiled when asked whether he would give his great gifts to the drafting of some new wording. The right hon. Gentleman said that he would indeed, thinking how splendid it was that his qualities had been recognised and enshrined in an Act of Parliament. It is a supreme and splendid irony. Never mind, I simply draw attention to this fact. I am sure that these words should go in.

Had I been present in Committee, perhaps the Government would not have been defeated, although on reflection I might not have been able to help because I was operating the system called pairing which may be dimly recalled in the memory of the House.

I go along perfectly happily with the wording in question, but we must remember the source of this piece of drafting if there is opposition on Third Reading or if, regrettably, the working of the Bill is impeded. Some fairly clear hints were made when the appointment of the chairman was announced, but in parenthesis I wish Mr. Robert Cooper well. He has industrial knowledge behind him. In my view, however, it is valuable in principle for the chairman of this body to have a knowledge of the political world. I leave the matter at that. If we later find that there is deliberate and obstructive opposition, it will be necessary for us to remember that central to the Bill is an essential piece of drafting which was provided by one of those who most bitterly oppose its working.

In Committee it was recognised by all who were in attendance that this was an essential clause. It is true to say that without the inclusion of the new schedule the Bill means nothing.

Rubbish.

The Bill would mean nothing if the schedule were not to be accepted. I am beginning to wonder whether we are seeing for the first time or the second time a hybrid Bill on the Floor of the House. We are really seeing hybridity in the new schedule that has been drafted with the help of the Government and the excellent pen of the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell).

Is it necessary for the House to deliberate at such great length on the Bill when the public in Northern Ireland must be made aware that the whole basis of the Bill was penned by the right hon. Gentleman'? For the sake and convenience of the House, perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will make quiet representations to his hon. Friend the Member for Armagh (Mr. McCusker), who has voiced such bitter and violent opposition to almost every clause both here and in Northern Ireland. In so doing he has tried to engage the enmity of employers in Northern Ireland towards every facet of this legislation.

I do not take any strong objections to the wording of the new schedule. Perhaps there are a few words here and there which differ from the schedule which was deleted, but I think that that shows the honesty of the Government. Had they wanted to re-institute the schedule as it stood, they could have done so, as we have seen by the vote this morning, without any difficulty. The Government were prepared to give up their own wording on the understanding that the new schedule would be made known in Northern Ireland, and that the person responsible for its drafting would be made known.

The last two contributions have been particularly interesting and enlightening. I can understand the jealousy of the hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. van Straubenzee), who drafted a lengthy, wordy and defective declaration of principle. I can understand the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt)—in the Irish Press this is known as Gerry Fitt's Bill—not wanting to be associated with a Bill which has a section drafted by my right hon. Friend the Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell). However, I suggest that the working of the agency and the possible success of the Bill will have nothing to do with the fact that someone will sign his name at the bottom of a declaration. Those who make that suggestion do not do themselves justice.

I had not intended to speak again, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because the debate was going reasonably well until a couple of speeches ago. Since then it has deteriorated sharply. Unfortunately, the deterioration took place more as a result of the contribution of the hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. van Straubenzee) than of anything else. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman realises the possible effect of his remarks, some of which might be taken out of context and presented, among other places, in Northern Ireland.

We all know that the Bill owes a lot to the hon. Gentleman and very little to me, but I plead with him not to take from me the little bit that it owes to me. I have sat in judgment on the wording in the schedule, and my right hon. and hon. Friends have come to the conclusion that the wording meets the desirable objectives of the Bill—namely, to remove religious discrimination, in so far as that is possible, from society in Northern Ireland. The Government stand by that decision. With due respect, I am the person who has to stand at the Dispatch Box and take responsibility for the wording, and I do that.

The remarks of the hon. Member for Wokingham and my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) will not assist the operation and administration of this measure when it gets on the statute book. I admit that both hon. Members concluded their remarks with words beyond criticism, but I am afraid that it is the words preceding those which may remain permanently on record in the Northern Ireland Press.

I deplore the remarks that have been made by the hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. van Straubenzee) and the tone which he introduced to the debate. I deplore his remarks about hating Catholics and hating Protestants. That sort of language cannot help the situation in Northern Ireland. Further, I think that in this House anyone is entitled to express an opinion about whether an appointment to a Government body is right or proper.

I am amazed that the hon. Members for Wokingham and Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) now say that they have no objection to the wording of the new schedule. If they had some reasonable objection to the wording, I could well understand the attacks that have been made upon my right hon. Friend the Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell), but they now agree that the wording is all right and accept it. Therefore the arguments that they have put forward have no relevance. It seems that basically they have nothing against the amendment.

rose——

Order. The hon. Gentleman has already spoken.

I beg to move Amendment No. 11 in page 4, line 37, after 'manner", insert 'otherwise than by oath'.

In Committee there was quite a lengthy debate upon this issue. I deal first with the general issue of how the agency will work. I thought it would be the mind of the Government that the agency would work by persuasion rather than by compulsion. I thought that was their attitude towards this type of legislation. I thought that the agency, by consultation, by hearing the views of the employer and listening to the views put forward by employees, would seek to conciliate and to bring forward an amicable arrangement, generally seeking to be helpful to both employer and employee.

In the debate in Committee my right hon. Friend the Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) made a lengthy speech on that theme. He pointed out that as the Bill stands wide powers seem to be given in what is not a very clear directive. Clause 7(2)(a) state that the agency may

"require a declarant, as a condition of remaining on the register, to reaffirm at such intervals and in such manner as the Agency may determine".

That can be widely interpreted. Under the clause the agency could come to a place of business every week, or every day, and say "We want you to affirm again whether you are standing by the declaration".

It was suggested in Committee that the agency might even be entitled to ask the person to affirm in the form of an oath. I find that peculiar. Although some hon. Members are prepared in the House to affirm by oath their loyalty to Her Majesty the Queen, they carry out a campaign against such an oath in any legislative assembly that might be set up in Northern Ireland.

A firm commitment was made by the former Minister of State in Committee. I pay tribute to him for the work he did in Northern Ireland, and it would be churlish not to say that we wish him well in the Government office he now holds. He said:

"If we are talking about an oath in the ultimate definition, there is a legal oath that is taken and which would stand up in a court of law. I want to make it absolutely clear that an oath will not he asked for, either legal or otherwise."—[Official Report, Standing Committee H, 16th March 1976; c. 204.]

That is a clear and unambiguous statement. The Minister of State was discriminating between an oath that would stand up in a court of law and an affirmation that would not. We feel that it should be written into the Bill that there is to be no oath, because the courts decide the eventual interpretation of an Act of Parliament. We want the solemn promise given by the Minister on that occasion to be written into the Bill. We are being reasonable and simply asking for what has already been promised to us by the Government, and I hope that the Minister will accede to our request.

The hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) quoted the clear pledge given by the previous Minister of State to me in Committee on 16th March. We should like to be satisfied that full statutory effect is given to that pledge. If the Minister can satisfy us, well and good. If not, I feel that he should accept the amendment.

As the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) said, my right hon. Friend the former Minister of State gave an unequivocal answer. He also said:

"What my hon. Friend said last week was right, but the Government have looked at the situation, and if the right hon. Gentleman meant a legal oath, or that an oath would be taken, the straight answer to that is 'No.' "—[Official Report, Standing Committee H, 16th March 1976; c. 203.]

We have considered this in depth and we were still, at 9.30 a.m. today, before we knew which amendments would be selected, pondering how we could facilitate my right hon. Friend's unequivocal answer. My advice, as late as this morning—we thought that we might possibly have to write this into the Bill—is that the amendment is wholly unnecessary, because legislation is always drafted on the basis that an oath can never be required without express statutory expression that it should be. It was put to us in Committee that we should not do anything that is unnecessary.

In all other legislation an oath can be called for only if it is specifically written into the Bill. We have checked that, and it is so. If an oath were required, it would have to be written into the Bill. The fact that it is not written into the Bill means that the oath cannot be called for, and that expressly covers my right hon. Friend's commitment.

Even after the clarification given by the Minister of State, I still have doubts. Clause 7(2)(a) gives power to the agency to:

"require a declarant, as a condition of remaining on the register, to reaffirm, at such intervals and in such manner as the Agency may determine, his intention to adhere to the Declaration;"

That might be taken to mean that the agency may decide to administer an oath. The Minister of State said that for the oath to be lawful a provision would have to be written into the Bill.

I have great regard for the integrity of the former Minister of State, who piloted the Bill through Committee, and I know that his intention was that no oath should be administered. There is a clear distinction between tribunals and courts. In a court it is likely that an oath will be administered, but in a tribunal the oath is taken only on certain occasions.

If the Minister of State is quite clear that in no circumstances will an oath be administered, I cannot support the amendment.

My experience with this problem is a good illustration of the way in which at each stage the Government have directed their minds to points brought forward. The point was raised in Committee whether "manner" could include an oath. The then Minister of State said that it could not include a legal oath but, upon further consideration, he said that it was not intended to include either a legal oath or an oath in any sense. The Government were satisfied of the desirability of clarifying the matter upon the face of the Bill.

It so happens, fortunately, that the drafting of the Bill, according to legal advice, excludes an oath in any natural sense of that term. Therefore, our object has been achieved and, no doubt, my hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) will ask the leave of the House to withdraw the amendment.

Perhaps I may add that advice received half-an-hour or so before a Minister comes in to face a Committee or Report stage is sometimes a little hurried. In saying that I mean no disrespect to anyone. I have personal experience, as have other hon. Members, of the extraordinary pressure of being confronted with pages of amendments, to any of which one may have to reply in an hour or two's time.

If on further investigation it should transpire that there is any doubt about the advice which has been given, there are, even at this stage, steps within the Government's competence which could be taken to put it right. I am not seek- ing to elicit any commitment from the Minister, and my words in Hansard should not be treated as such, but I thought it fair in the light of what he disclosed to the House, to include that caveat.

We did not receive the advice as late as at 9.30 this morning. We have had the advice for some time. We were merely making absolutely certain that we were fitting the Bill to what my right hon. Friend the former Minister of State said about it. We now think that everything is right.

I listened carefully to what the Minister of State said. In view of his statement that, except when there is a clear provision that an oath is required, no oath can be required, I am satisfied. This completely answers the statement which was made by the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) that the agency could not take it upon itself to require an oath: it would have no statutory authority for so doing. It is clear on the present wording of the Bill that no oath will be required and no attempt will be made to administer the oath as part of the agency's policy. In view of that, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

I beg to move Amendment No. 14, in page 5, line 21, after '(b)' insert '(i) or'.

With this we may take Government Amendments Nos. 15 and 16.

The purpose of the amendments is to provide a right of appeal against the removal under the provisions of Clause 7(2)(b)(i) of a declarant's name from the Register of Equal Opportunity Employers and Organisations.

The Bill as drafted already provides a right of appeal against the removal of a declarant's name under Clause 7(2)(b)(iii), where the declarant is found to have acted in a manner inconsistent with adhering to the declaration. In Committee the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) proposed that provision should be made for an appeal against removal under Clause 7(2)(b)(i) in order to prevent the agency from having unrestricted powers to require a declarant's reaffirmation under Clause 7(2)(a).

It will be understood that these amendments achieve that object. Having just promised to consider one amendment and having not been able to meet hon. Members on another, it is very pleasant for me to come to amendments which fulfil a promise which was given in Committee.

This is a genuine improvement which the Government have agreed to make. The power of the agency once a declaration has been made to insist upon a reaffirmation is a tricky matter, anyhow, and potentially lends itself—I make no imputations against the agency; but, after all, we are legislating—to unreasonable or oppressive courses. It was appropriate that a right of appeal against unreasonable exercise of that power should be given. My hon. Friends and I are grateful to the Government for having accepted the point.

We, too, support these amendments, which meet the objections we made in Committee.

I beg to move Amendment No. 17, in page 5, line 36, leave out 'the appeal' and insert:

'an appeal under this section'.

With this we may take Government Amendment No. 18.

I shall not waste the time of the House. I merely say that these amendments have been tabled in reply to undertakings that were given in Committee. I refer to column 218 of the Official Report. We believe that these amendments will strengthen the Bill.

I beg to move Amendment No. 22, in page 6, line 9, after 'names', insert of employers'.

With this we may take Government Amendments Nos. 23 to 26.

These, again, are amendments introduced by the Government with a view to meeting representations made in Committee so that a public authority will inform the agency only if it thinks that, in carrying out a contract, an employer or vocational organisation has acted in a manner inconsistent with the declaration of principle and intent. It does not have a general duty so to inform the agency. I hope that hon. Members will agree to accept the amendments.

I am obliged to the Government for having seen and accepted the point that the power of information could hi theory be used improperly and for having taken steps to improve that.

I beg to move Amendment No. 21, in page 7, line 35, at end insert—

'(a) identifying factors not related to the presence or absence of equality of opportunity which influence those patterns and trends.'

We have reached those parts of the Bill which can be described as somewhat unpleasant when one gets down to the nitty-gritty. This clause, although it is one of the shortest in the Bill, received perhaps the greatest amount of attention in Committee.

The clause imposes a duty upon the agency to identify and maintain registers of religious affiliations of employees of companies throughout Northern Ireland and to review those registers of religious affiliations with a view to deciding whether the statistics reveal the existence or absence of equality of opportunity. The registers are also designed to assist the agency in forming certain opinions.

There was lengthy debate on this matter in Committee. No matter how one seeks to get round the problem, it still boils down to the fact that someone must—at least initially—go through a list of names and append against the names certain religious affiliations. We were assured in Committee that the names themselves might be dispensed with but that eventually the agency would keep a register containing a list of employers and that against that list of employers would be a statement that in some instances the employer employs a preponderence of Protestants and in some instances the employer employs a preponderence of Catholics. We were told that on the basis of those statistics the agency would consider whether the statistics revealed the existence of or absence of equality of opportunity.

It became obvious as the debate proceeded in Committee that the Minister of State who was then handling the Bill did not seek to put that interpretation upon the clause. He admitted eventually that there were many other factors involved—the geographical location of the works, the composition of the population in the area of the factory, the training facilities, the tradition of employment in the area and even the security situation. Those could all be factors which would ultimately influence the composition of a work force. The Minister of State's careful qualification of what was meant is set out in columns 256 and 260 of the Official Report.

We are trying to ensure that, although the agency may require these statistics to enable it to do some work, the statistics will not be used simply as a basis of making certain assumptions but that the agency will take into account all the other factors I have mentioned and when reaching its conclusions will not be prepared to damn someone on the basis of statistics when other factors are involved. For that reason, and in the hope that it meets the assurances given by the Minister, we have put down the amendment.

I want to add a special appeal to the Minister of State to treat the amendment favourably. He will have refreshed his memory of the long debate on this clause in Committee. As that debate proceeded, it became clear that there was an ambiguity and a possible double or alternative interpretation in the clause, and an interpretation that would affect the whole meaning of the work of the agency.

The ambiguity arose out of the expression

"identify and keep under review patterns and trends of employment … considering whether they reveal the existence or absence of equality of opportunity".

It seemed to some of my hon. Friends and myself that the natural meaning of that duty of the agency was that it was to compile statistics of the religions of employees which would enable it to identify the existing, and to review changing, patterns of employment in the aspect of the existence or absence of discrimination.

As the debate continued, it became clear that that was not the intention of the Government and was not the sort of duty they were seeking to impose upon the agency. Indeed, there must be a dozen passages in Hansard of the Committee stage where the then Minister of State, in the most emphatic terms, disavowed any intention that the agency could find itself compiling statistics of percentages by religion and applying some sort of quota norm to answering the question: is there or is there not here equality of opportunity?

As we listened to the then Minister of State, we saw that the patterns and trends of employment could be reviewed from a different point of view in this context and that the duty of the agency might be intended to be to establish the basic facts of the whole employment situation, against which the existence of discrimination and the denial of equality of opportunity would be able to stand out—if I may put it another way, that it could be the duty of the agency to establish what was accounted for in other ways than by discrimination, and thus isolate discrimination and the denial of equality of opportunity. That seemed to us to be a perfectly rational procedure—indeed, a procedure implicit in the existence and general duties of the agency.

If I may address the absent spirit of the hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. van Straubenzee), I hope that he is in a small minority in considering that where hon. Members do not believe that a Bill will serve a useful purpose, or are even opposed to the principle of the Bill, their proper attitude thereafter is to clear off and leave the Bill as it is, on the general principle that the worse it is drafted the better, since it is not, in their view, serving a useful purpose. For my part, I believe that there is no contradiction in parliamentary terms between what we said on Second Reading and what we shall say on Third Reading and endeavouring, taking the assumptions that are accepted by the House by its vote on Second Reading, to ensure that the Bill is as good as possible within the framework of those assumptions.

1.45 p.m.

We have sought in this amendment to ensure that the intended interpretation is given to the duty of reviewing patterns and trends of employment. I assure the Minister that, with the best will in the world, until we had been through two or three hours in Committee we were unable to read Clause 16 except as implying the compilation of statistics of religion and the application of a quota norm as the evidence of non-discrimination. We have the advantage now that we have on the record of our Committee proceed- ings several statements of the Government's intentions. No doubt it is true that the agency will be guided and motivated by the intention of its creators—we are not always, I am sorry to say, guided and motivated by the intention of our creator—we shall, nevertheless, all be ready to give the agency the benefit of the doubt; but so crucial is this matter, and so much suspicion and even anger attaches to the notion of catalogues by percentage of religious affiliation and the idea that there is some rule of thumb that will be applied to the statistics, that we ought to do everything we can on the face of the Bill to banish the possibility of that view being taken, or even of that interpretation being given, of the proceedings of the agency.

It seems to us that the amendment will achieve precisely that effect. It states exactly what the then Minister of State said the agency would set about doing: that it would set about establishing the scope of other factors determining the matter, that it would then consider whether that revealed the existence or absence of discrimination, and consequently it would be assisted in forming an opinion as stated in paragraph (b). I appeal to the Minister of State, bearing in mind that we are in difficulties at this late stage in the second house of the Bill and, therefore, we cannot draft and redraft for very much longer, to accept this wording.

I want to say a few words in a general way about the background to the amendment, because I remember well what happened when I was serving on a public body in Northern Ireland. We were assembled for our monthly meeting, and the secretary read a letter from some superior body asking for a breakdown by religious denominations of the members of our staff, which at that time numbered about 100. I remember the stunned reaction of my fellow members of all denominations as that letter was read.

After a time they recovered, and I discovered that they were staring at me. Eventually one of them asked me: "Did you know, because, after all, you were the chairman of the panel which appointed them?". I was totally unable to give any answer because no such element had ever entered into our considerations. We were concerned only to get the best people for the job on all occasions.

The body making the inquiry received a reply which the original letter well deserved and merited, but it is true to say that from that day onwards there was a degree of suspicion both in the main body and in the relatively small panel that was responsible for the appointments. There was a degree of suspicion which had never before existed. Had it not been for the fact that my two fellow members of the panel, both respected members of the Catholic community in Northern Ireland, were good friends of mine, I tremble to think what might have been the effect on our operations. There might have been an evil influence on all our future considerations of applications, applicants and interviews had we felt ourselves bound somehow to decide not on the merit of whether a person was the best for the job, but whether he would fit into a particular religious category. Because of that experience, which will be with me all my days, I warmly support the amendment.

Before I call the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) I hope that the authorities will ensure that the noise outside the Chamber stops. We cannot have our proceedings disturbed in this way.

With my lung power I could shout above that noise.

We are coming to one of the important matters for hon. Members from Northern Ireland. I would deplore any attempt by the agency to interpret the trends in employment by the quota system, because anyone who knows Northern Ireland—and there are many hon. Members who are ignorant of the Northern Ireland situation—are aware that there are certain sections of trade and industry that are almost totally in the hands of one religious section.

I am thinking of one section of the building trade which is 100 per cent. in the hands of Roman Catholics and another section of another trade which is 100 per cent. in the hands of Protestants, because they have long traditions and people of particular denominations have been employed in those trades for many years. I remember being in a situation where employment was needed for a particular reason and I learned that fact as I have never learned it before. I do not want to give the House the names of places in the building trade where that situation applies, or the names of places where it applies in another industry.

When speaking of equality of opportunity I am emphasising that the person who has the qualifications for the job should not be discriminated against because of his religion. The man with the qualifications for the job should get it, and we want to see that situation safeguarded. How will the agency make its investigation? How will it interpret trends if it does not deal with religious affiliations within employing bodies? Will it rest with the employers to establish the religion of employees?

Many organisations purposely do not inquire about the religion of employees and in the present delicate situation many people in Northern Ireland do not want their religious affiliations to be known. There are also those who have no particular religious affiliation.

The story is told that in one of the troubles a person was asked his religion and he said that he was an agnostic. He was then asked whether he was a Roman Catholic agnostic or a Protestant agnostic. Those are the facts of life. I trust that the Minister will realise that the purpose of the amendment is to deal with an important issue.

One virtue of the debate on this amendment is that it enables me to reiterate everything that my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme) said in Committee about the total undesirability of trying to administer the Bill on the basis of quotas and registers of people's religion. The Government do not wish to see the Bill administered in that way and I am in a position to reaffirm everything that my hon. Friend said. At least the House is aware of the Government's intentions and the Government are aware of the worries of Northern Ireland hon. Members.

We are dealing with what will become a totally new legal concept. In all these matters to some extent we are dependent upon the way in which the courts will interpret any concepts that we write into the Bill. The phrase in the Bill about reviewing patterns and trends of employment is sufficient to take the administration of the future Act away from the narrow point of quotas and registers in respect of the employees about whom hon. Members are worried and away to the broader issues as they are related to employment.

A typical example would be where it was found that a factory had a sectarian bias one way or the other which was explained by the fact that representatives from the minority concerned might have to travel through a particular area to get to the factory, which they might prefer not to do. That might explain the sectarian nature of employment at a factory. That situation is covered by the existing wording of the Bill. But in an attempt to make it quite clear, hon. Members have introduced a further sub-paragraph.

Until now their aim has been to make the drafting of the Bill as precise as possible, but here they seem to have gone the opposite way in trying to introduce a sub-paragraph which seems capable of bringing almost anything into the considerations of the Fair Employment Agency. If we incorporated that subparagraph into the Bill, I wonder what the precise effect would be when being adjudicated upon by a court. It is always possible that such matters will be subject to adjudication. Perhaps it is a flight of fancy, but the whole matter is so wide that maybe the constitutional link between Great Britain and Northern Ireland might be brought into question if the amendment were accepted.

The Minister of State has pointed out that the agency would have to identify such a matter as the existence of a dangerous area and the location of a dangerous area for transit. It follows that to do the job as he has interpreted it, the agency will have to identify a whole range of factors which are unrelated to discrimination. I wonder whether he has really grasped the difficulty with which we are endeavouring to cope.

I am seized of the difficulties. It is a question of the best way of solving the problem. The words as they stand relate in some way or another all the matters which the agency must take into consideration to employment. I know that a statute must be construed as a whole. Even so, the amendment is very wide and moves right away from

"patterns and trends of employment"

to a point where it is not easy to judge where the bounds of the Bill and of the Fair Employment Agency operating it could be drawn.

2.0 p.m.

For this reason I am loth to accept the amendment. I could understand it if the amendment were being put forward on the basis that hon. Members opposite want to create a climate of opinion within which the agency will work and if they were addressing themselves to this end to secure further public clarification. That would be a valid purpose for the amendment. But it is so wide that it is difficult to judge what its precise terms are, and I must ask the House to reject it.

What the Minister said obviously gives us pause, and it may well be there may well be something defective in our amendment. But under the clause in its present form there is undoubtedly a duty on the agency to compile or keep registers of religious affiliation. I do not know how the agency will keep under review "patterns and trends", unless it decides at any moment how many of one religion work in a certain place and how many of another, and carry out the same exercise six months or a year later.

We hope that we have been assured that the agency will not keep names, but it will keep totals, and someone has to say what religion a certain person is, and so on. If the Minister can assure us that "patterns and trends" can be kept under review by some other means, and that there will be no percentage lists of employment in different places of employment and so on, that may help us, but at present that is what the clause indicates. It indicates that the agency keeps them with a view to considering whether they prove that there is equality or lack of equality of opportunity.

I beg to move Amendment No. 28, in page 8, line 4, leave out 'failures' and insert 'any failure'.

With this amendment we may discuss Amendment No. 31, in page 8, line 6, leave out 'secure equality of opportunity' and insert 'remedy such failure'.

The amendments are attempts to remove imprecision and ambiguity. It is a question also of trying to keep a check on the operation of the agency as it proceeds under the terms of Clause 11.

Throughout the Bill there is the objective that intensive investigations shall be made. There is such a wide interpretation of the concept of equality of opportunity that we must be able to tell an employer precisely what his failure is. It is not enough to talk in terms of

"failures to provide equality of opportunity".

We must tell an employer "This is precisely what you are failing to do by way of providing equality of opportunity, or what you are doing by way of discrimination." There is no such precision if we leave the words which we seek to remove. The amendment is a plea for precision and clarity.

After a period in which the Government were able to accept so many suggestions made by hon. Members opposite, I have to be resistant to this. These are technical, drafting amendments designed to ensure that the investigations and so on are related to specific failures, not to the broad concept of failure. The idea is to limit the busy-bodying propensities of the agency if necessary to the consideration of the precise allegations involved.

I have sought technical advice from the experts because my own legal days are, I regret to say, very far in the distant past. Their advice is that the precision of the Bill is not improved by the substitution of the words of the amendment. Therefore, I hope that the House will accept that the amendment should be withdrawn or negatived.

I have no doubt that the Minister of State is correct in saying that the Bill as it stands is as precise as it would be if the amendment were accepted, but it would mean something different if my hon. Friend's amendment were made. As I apprehend it, my hon. Friend was not making merely a drafting proposal. The difficulty which he and some of the rest of us feel is that having in paragraph (a) spoken of

"ascertaining failures to provide equality of opportunity",

which are necessarily individual cases—as is shown by the words

"existence, nature and extent"—

the Bill, instead of saying what the agency should do to deal with them goes on to deal with something different, or at any rate not specifically related to those failures. The agency is to consider

"action… to secure equality of opportunity".

It may be that we have been wrong in reading paragraphs (a) and (b) conjunctively instead of disjunctively. Maybe paragraphs (a) and (b) are separate from one another; but if they are, we seem to be left in the air, with the agency under paragraph (a) ascertaining failures and then doing nothing to remedy them, but instead making general proposals and indications under paragraph (b).

Therefore, perhaps the Minister of State will accept that there is here a real point, not a drafting point, and will at any rate endeavour to meet our difficulty. I repeat as briefly as I can that it is that paragraphs (a) and (b) do not seem to be related to one another, and that the operations under paragraph (a) seem to be of a different kind from those under paragraph (b), so that we are at a loss to see how they link together in the purposes and activities in which the agency is to be assisted. I hope that the Minister of State can respond to at any rate an honest endeavour at clarification.

I am grateful for that further explanation by the right hon. Gentleman, which directs my mind to a different point from the one with which I was dealing earlier. My difficulty is that I have not assessed the amendments before now in the manner in which the right hon. Gentleman has put them forward. But, from what I can remember of drafting statutes, paragraphs (a) and (b) should be read conjointly rather than separately.

I admit that it would have been clearer had "and consequently" or some phrase of that kind been the concluding words of paragraph (a). On the basis that statutes are constructed as a whole, I cannot see how paragraph (b) can be construed in any other way than conjointly with paragraph (a). We have no control over the way in which the courts will interpret these clauses. The clause seems to me as clear as we can make it in this House.

I beg to move Amendment No. 29, in page 8, line 5, leave out 'provide' and insert 'afford'.

With this we may take Government Amendments Nos. 30, 32, 33, 36, 40, 46, 57, 58, 74, 79, 84 and 85.

In Committee we christened this clutch of amendments the four verb amendments. I gave a specific promise to look at them and to come back on Report with another form of words. I hope that this lexicographical choice meets with the understanding of the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell).

My hon. Friends and I would like to offer a special word of thanks to the Government for having come forward with what has been called "this clutch of amendments". It results from our attempting what is generally a temerarious proceeding—namely, to challenge, in some ways by implication, the technical competence of the draftsmen by suggesting that they have been using two or three words where one word would do and switching about from one formulation to another within the same statute.

I think it possible that there may be a slightly different draftsmanship tradition as between the former Northern Ireland Parliament and Office and this House and those who advise this House. Whichever it is to be, we must be consistent within the same statute. I am glad that the Government have recognised that the consistency could be improved and have so thoroughly imposed consistency throughout in this way.

I beg to move Amendment No. 34, in page 9, line 28, at end insert:

'(2) The action mentioned in subsection (1) of this section shall not include the maintenance of any quota or specific proportion between numbers of employees of different religious beliefs.'

In Clause 11 we talked about the duty laid on the agency to keep under review employment trends and patterns in Northern Ireland. In Clause 12 the agency is given specific powers to investigate individual cases where it feels that equality of opportunity is not being provided. The agency is given power to conduct investigations into whether there is absence of equality of opportunity by reference to religious beliefs. In Clause 13 we are dealing with the agency laying upon an individual certain directions to enable him to remedy the situation.

Apart from all the assurances that we were given, we must concede that if an employer in Northern Ireland employs 100 people, 60 Protestants and 40 Catholics, it would not matter whether he was providing equality of opportunity, because, within the terms of the Bill, he could be discriminating left, right and centre. In that case, however, no one could point the finger at him. But in other cases it would be a different matter.

A few months ago one of my constituents, a member of the SDLP, visited me. We had a conversation during which he told me that he employed 55 Catholics. It shocked both myself and the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt). I said "You will be guilty under this legislation of neglecting to give equality of opportunity." The man was shattered beyond belief. In view of all the factors that we have described—the location of his works, the type of employment that he was offering, and the tradition of the industry—that employer did not appear to be offering equality of opportunity. Even though he may not be guilty, other factors are involved. As there will be pressure on people to strike some numerical balance, even though the Bill does not insist upon it, it is important to ensure that a person does not jeopardise his business by giving equality of opportunity and trying to keep a balance in his work force.

In Committee the Minister gave us the categorical assurance:

"The Government have firmly rejected the two-thirds/one-third concept. It will not work in any form of employment, as we see it. It must be done on the basis of a person having equality of opportunity".—[Official Report, Standing Committee H, 18th March 1976; c. 256.]

Despite that assurance, if it is inherent in the Bill that decisions will be made on the basis of numerical calculations and proportions, undue pressure will be put on employers to keep a balance.

The hon. Member for Belfast, West quoted cases in the Falls Road of employers who find it impossible to keep a balance. We think it is important to remove that pressure from an employer.

This is an important amendment. I hope that the Minister of State will be able to give a satisfactory reply to the argument that has been adduced by the hon. Member for Armagh (Mr. McCusker).

In Committee on 18th March—column 267—I asked the previous Minister of State, the right hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme), how religious belief would be ascertained and how discrimination on the ground of religious belief would be proved. The reply was somewhat vague. We are constantly up against this danger of quotas being set up under this measure. The working party was against quotas and Ministers are against quotas.

The hon. Member for Armagh quoted from the Committee stage to show that the Standing Committee was opposed to quotas. We are assured that the Bill implicitly prevents their being enforced. However, there is a strong case for making this explicit in Clause 13, which, as it stands, could be read as empowering the agency to lay down numerical targets for employers.

This issue was discussed at great length in Committee. Those who took part in the debate recognised that many factors could lead to an industrial establishment having a preponderance of workers of one particular religion. Clearly, the Government thought this provision necessary because of the deep underlying suspicion, highlighted in the report of the van Straubenzee Committee, that there were industrial establishments in Northern Ireland which, unless there were other evidence to refute it, would appear to be indulging in discrimination against people on the ground of religious belief.

The hon. Member for Armagh (Mr. McCusker) was, as usual, selective in the cases, which he quoted. Therefore, he will not be in the least surprised if I am a bit more selective. The figures which I quote will tend to justify my suspicion that in some establishments there would appear to be discrimination.

The hon. Member for Armagh tells of how he met one of his constituents on the Terrace of this House. That constituent was a Catholic engaged in the wine and spirits trade. He told the hon. Member that he had 55 employees and could not get a Protestant to work for him. He was thus forced to employ people of one religion or no religion. It is interesting to observe that after that confidence was divulged to the hon. Member he waited with bated breath until the next sitting of the Committee. Then he raced in, was called, and was able to bring this revelation before the Committee to press his case that there were Catholics in Northern Ireland who seemed to be employing only Catholics.

If the hon. Member wants to be as selective as that let me point out that we have the Belfast shipyard of Harland and Wolff. For many years the facts have been that out of about 10,000 employees at the yard 9,874 have been Protestants and the remainder Catholics. It may be that for geographical reasons Catholics are afraid to walk down the Queen's Road to the shipyard. I do not accept that. It may be that Catholics are afraid to enter such an industrial establishment because there is a preponderance of Protestants and Orangemen there. During the month of July it is certainly not the best place for a Catholic to be working.

It could be that there is an "old boy" network operating in the Orange lodges throughout Northern Ireland which ensures that the brethren get the jobs. One can understand the close relationship that there is, or has been until recent days. Perhaps there may be another, as yet undisclosed factor, which accounts for this Protestant majority. Perhaps it is that an Orangeman is a better fitter, turner, carpenter, or shipwright than a Catholic. I do not think that that is the reason.

I believe that over a period of years the yard has engaged in a deliberate policy of employing people of one religion. It may be that that has been justified. Obviously, within a Northern Ireland context it makes for harmonious relationships, particularly during July, if there are persons of only one religion in the establishment.

No doubt the hon. Member for Armagh will want to refer to the Kennedy and Hughes bakery, on the Falls Road. It may be that it makes for better industrial relations in an establishment if all of those employed are Catholics. This Bill is meant to try to ensure that everyone in Northern Ireland will be entitled to employment, if it is available. With the present rate of unemployment, there will be many people, irrespective of religion, who will not have a job.

Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that from the picture he has painted there must be collusion from the top to the bottom in the management at Harland and Wolff? They must all be conniving at this vicious situation. Would it not be advantageous for the shipyard to be included in the nationalisation proposals so that an independent eye could be cast on the management there and, if massive religious discrimination is found, it could be changed? Will the hon. Gentleman give unequivocal support to the suggestion that the Belfast yard should be included in the Government's nationalisation proposals?

Over many years I have said that I want to see the maximum number of people employed at Harland and Wolff, whether they be Protestant or Catholic. I want to see the maximum number of people, irrespective of religion, employed in Northern Ireland. The hon. Gentleman has been greatly inconsistent. He now calls for the inclusion of Harland and Wolff in the Government's proposals, yet he voted against this legislation on Second Reading. A more schizophrenic approach I have never heard of. We all understand that Unionist representatives from Northern Ireland are affected in many ways by schizophrenia. This was a very bad example. People in Northern Ireland should be entitled to gain employment on the grounds of their ability and qualifications.

It is in the interests of Northern Ireland representatives that this matter should be cleared up once and for all. If there is no discrimination, there is certainly the assumption that there has been discrimination. There is a suspicion that certain firms, in the main Protestant, because they have more industrial firms in Northern Ireland than the Catholics, have been practicing discrimination. If this Bill does anything to allay these suspicions and make it clear that there is no discrimination, it will have been worth while.

I listened with great interest to the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt). In Committee he was arguing in quite the reverse direction. He said then:

"I turn my remarks specifically to the shipyards. I know that in my own constituency, for example—this will probably please the hon. Member for Armagh—there are firms whose work force is, I believe, 100 per cent. Catholic. There are many reasons for that. It is possible that a fear would be engendered among Protestants to traverse the area of the Falls Road, the Donegal Road or other streets, at present."—[Official Report, Standing Committee H, 18th March 1976; c. 281.]

Then the hon. Member went on to speak about internment. He is always able, by ingenious acts, to bring in these matters. The hon. Member has admitted that there are firms on the Falls Road employing 100 per cent. Roman Catholics. There are reasons for this other than that everyone from top management downwards is making a deliberate decision to discriminate.

The relationship of the families in particular areas has to be borne in mind. We can illustrate that well by referring to the docks in Northern Ireland. There are parts of the docks which are 100 per cent. Protestant and other parts which are 100 per cent. Roman Catholic. This is because the sons of the dockers have automatically gone into the relevant union. It was a family trade.

It is not right to say, when a firm is employing 100 per cent. Roman Catholics or Protestants, that it is deliberately discriminating against a religious denomination. The facts prove that there are many considerations. I do not know where the hon. Member for Belfast, West gets his figures from. Every time he speaks about the Belfast shipyard there seems to be a great fall in the Roman Catholic work force. Soon there will be none at all. I wonder whether that is because we are coming to July and the Roman Catholics are being converted as they pass through these areas. I trust that what has been said today about the Belfast shipyard will not hinder it in completing and, indeed, increasing its work force. I do not intend to develop an argument about how certain people voted, but we shall have an opportunity later to deal with that.

2.30 p.m.

The amendment concerns a matter which is very much in our minds. How do we establish trends? How do we know that an employer is employing members of one section of the community? How can we say to him "In order to achieve the certificate of fair employment, you must employ a certain number of people of a particular religious group"? It was argued in Committee that if there were two applicants for a job and the employer said that he had so many people of one religious denomination and therefore the person who would achieve a balance had the best chance of getting the job, although he might not be best qualified for it, that would not achieve equality of opportunity. That is the point that we are trying to establish.

I agree wholeheartedly with its sentiments, but I intend to resist the amendment. I had better explain how that paradox arises. The essential reason is that, under the Bill as drafted, quotas are illegal. The concept which is written into the Bill in clause after clause is that of equality of opportunity. Every thing in the Bill is based on that foundation.

Hon. Members opposite seem to be fascinated by blocks, quotas, balance and concepts of that sort, whereas the objective of the Bill is to deal with the individual sense of grievance, although in order to assess it we may have to take the social backdrop to the complaint which is under consideration. That was argued by the Government exhaustively in Committee, but we do not seem to have got it across. I do not know whether the reason is that Celts tend to think in tribal terms whereas Anglo-Saxons tend to think in more individual terms. Speaking as a fellow Celt, I find it difficult to understand this concept of tribality.

Let us suppose that an employer decided to solve the problem of employment by employing Protestants as two-thirds of his work force and Catholics as one-third. Let us suppose that 66 people were Protestants and he took them all on, saying "That is my quota of Protestants. From now on I shall take on only Catholics". Let us suppose that the 67th person who turned up was a Protestant well qualified to do the job, was able and willing to do it, and was a good worker and that the management said "No, you cannot have a job with us. This job is for the Catholics. I have 66 Protestants already". That would be illegal under the Bill because the 67th person would not have been given equality of opportunity to do the job which he merited on all considerations of industrial skill, willingness, moral character or anything else of which one can think that is appropriate to filling a job.

Therefore, I resist the amendment. If it were made to this clause, which is concerned with quotas, it would automatically cast doubt on the concept of equality of opportunity wherever else it appeared in the Bill and therefore, to some extent, might import doubt into people's minds, suggesting that perhaps equality of opportunity meant quotas after all. For that reason, in spite of the fact that the sentiments behind the amendment are echoed not only by myself but by the Government—and I am speaking on behalf of the Government—I urge the House not to adopt it.

The Minister of State realised that he was, in a sense, presenting the House with a paradox when he said that he agreed with and asserted the contents of the amendment, but would not write it into the Bill. As his argument proceeded, we saw more clearly the relevance to this debate of two speeches—that of my hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) and that of the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt). I confess that unintentionally I sometimes do the hon. Member for Belfast, West the injustice of of being unable at first to discern the relevance of his speeches to the amendment under discussion. I am prepared to confess that it happened today, but I also confess that I was wrong because, taken in conjunction, the two speeches resolved the paradox—in a sense, they refute the paradox of the Minister.

My hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, North said that if an employer or anyone else making a decision has a balance in his mind and is attempting to have regard to that balance, he cannot abstain from discriminating between two applicants for a job. Therefore, in that context, the Minister was right in saying that the setting of quotas was, in its nature, discriminatory.

However, the hon. Member for Belfast, West supplied the real background against which the Bill will be read, against which the agency will operate and in which people live and breathe and have their being in Northern Ireland. Not only are there the statistical differences quoted in the House between different firms, but the mere fact of quoting them carries with it the implication that there is or must be discrimination—not quantifiable discrimination, not discrimination which could be eliminated if there were a different percentage, for the hon. Member for Belfast, West is as much opposed to quotas and as much in support of the sentiments of the amendment as is my hon. Friend the Member for Armagh (Mr. McCusker).

What the Minister and the Government overlook is that in real life the numerical balance will be a factor and that there will be immense pressure and expectation that the agency will have regard to numerical balance and that therefore, so far from weakening or contradicting the other provisions of the Bill, a positive prohibition on the agency to establish or have regard to specific numerical balances will be of assistance in achieving what the Government and, indeed, the whole House have in mind.

Perhaps the most drastic way by which I can prove that is by referring to the van Straubenzee Report. It was interesting that as the Committee stage proceeded the difference between the report of the working party and what the Government intended and how they understood the Bill emerged more clearly. I wish to quote a sentence from paragraph 131 of the van Straubenzee Report. The then Minister of State repudiated the paragraph, but it strengthens my argument.

The sentence is:

"The agency would provide a data-collection facility for employers who wished themselves to have information about the religious affiliations as a management tool."

That was written by a working party on whose results this Bill is supposed to be based. It envisaged that the agency could provide a service to employers by telling them "If you would like, we shall inform you of what is the balance between the religious affiliations of your employees so that you can use it as a management tool."

I know that that has been repudiated by the Government. But what I am telling the Government is that it represents the environment in which the agency will be operating, in which it will be expected to operate, and in which its actions and behaviour will be seen—the atmosphere, if one likes, of the interchange of speeches, half jocular, between the hon. Member for Belfast, West and my hon. Friend the Member for Armagh.

I do not believe that it can be maintained that, when a working party dedicated to methods of eliminating discrimination offers its very agency—its fair employment agency—as an agency for collecting information about religious affiliations in a particular firm to be used as a management tool, we can dismiss as contradictory to the theoretical meaning of discrimination, as it is contradictory, the establishment of a quota.

I believe that we have to fortify the agency in resisting the whole quota concept. The statements by the Minister in Committee will be valuable for that purpose. So will the logical deduction drawn by the hon. Gentleman at the Dispatch Box a few minutes ago. But what he has not proved is that there is no need, no value, and no benefit in the Bill carrying, on the face of it, the repudiation which all the speeches have carried.

We are in the typical difficulty approaching the concluding stages of a Bill in the second House to consider it, but sometimes results are obtained by other methods than by carrying amendments or dividing upon amendments. I think that perhaps this debate has brought further clarification of what discrimination means and does not mean in Northern Ireland.

I do not know what the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Armagh will be, having listened to the debate. It is obviously for him to decide. My view would be that we can probably do no more at this stage than record once again verbally from both sides of the House that a quota is a contradiction of equality of opportunity, and regard that as a remit which has come from this House to the agency and a message which will be waiting for it on the doormat when it is set up.

I agree substantially with what my right hon. Friend the Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) has said, and I understand the Minister of State's point of view. The Minister, however, gave a rather extreme example. Few employers will be recruiting 100 men, say, taking 66 Protestants and starting from that point. Very few employers employ either 100 per cent. Roman Catholics or 100 per cent. Protestants. Normally there is a preponderance of one religious affiliation or the other. But such an employer will be in a situation where it would appear, on a simple head count of religious beliefs, that he is not offering equality of opportunity.

Suppose that an employer has a vacancy and there are two applicants, one with the religious affiliation of the majority of the workers already employed by the firm and the other with the religious affiliation of the minority, and the majority applicant appears to be the better candidate. In a determination to get equality of opportunity, should the employer offer the job to that person or, considering that he must keep a balance, offer it to the minority applicant?

The solution might be for the employer to give both of them a trade test.

We are getting into the sort of water we were in in Committee. The hon. Gentleman knows that, despite all the selection techniques in the world—all the tests, psychological, practical or trade, all the examinations of academic attainment, and all experience—there still comes a stage where a recruitment officer has to make a decision, and if everything else is equal his decision is almost a hunch as to whether A will be better than B.

There is a pressure on the employer to try to work towards a balance, and while he is moving towards a balance he will be safe. If we empower the agency to investigate the composition of a work force by reference to religious belief, under such pressure the employer, even though inadvertently, will deprive employees of equality of opportunity. That is not what we want him to do, and I welcome the hon. Gentleman's assertion that that is not what is required by this provision. I regret that he cannot accept the amendment, because it would have put the matter beyond doubt. In the circumstances, however, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. As Government Amendment No. 37 substantially implements the purpose of Amendment No. 35, I do not propose to move Amendment. No. 35.

I beg to move Amendment No. 37, in page 10, line 13, at end insert:

'but the terms of directions contained in a notice served under subsection (2)(ii) which

supersede an undertaking shall be such as, in the opinion of the Agency, are not more onerous than the terms of the undertaking'.

In view of what was said by the right hon. Member for Down. South (Mr. Powell) when he informed you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that he would not move Amendment No. 35, I shall do no more than simply ask the House to agree to Amendment No. 37.

I beg to move Amendment No. 50, in page 12, line 31, at end insert of religious belief and'.

The reason for the amendment is not simply again to discuss the difficulties of drafting but to point out to the Government that if the present drafting of this provision is retained the words "political opinion" can mean, and we believe will come to mean, something quite different from the meaning intended by the Government. It is a question not merely of the niceties of drafting but of trying to achieve what we understand the Government to mean, a concept with which we agree.

The difficulty, which was demonstrated again and again in Committee, is that the Government are trying to ensure that no one is discriminated against because of his religion and are trying to ensure that that does not happen by removing any recourse to consideration of his political opinion. We understand that and we have the greatest sympathy with it. However, we believe that to retain the wording in Clause 16 as it now stands will not achieve that objective.

The difficulty, as I see it, is that religious discrimination does not necessarily include political discrimination. I might also make the point that in Northern Ireland one would concede that political discrimination takes place, but it exists outside consideration of religion. The problem to which we are addressing ourselves is how, in some way or another, to arrive at a satisfactory wording which safeguards a person from being discriminated against because of a legitimate political opinion while the employer is all the time trying to discriminate against him because of his actual religious belief. We do not believe that the wording in the clause achieves that. We believe that if the Government accepted the amendment we would cover that possibility so that religious belief can be recognised as the basis for discrimination without using the smokescreen of political opinion to discriminate.

I emphasise that if we leave in the words "political opinion" as baldly as they appear in the clause we shall be opening the door to all kinds of considerations that will make industrial and commercial life in Northern Ireland very difficult indeed. That point was expanded admirably by my right hon. Friend the Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) in Committee. He made the point that in Northern Ireland there is the possibility that discrimination will take place on the basis that one man belongs to a particular shade of unionism while another man does not. We know that that is not the Government's intention, but that is what will happen, and will be allowed to happen, under the terms of the Bill if we do not clarify precisely that the words "political opinion" are included only as a safeguard against the possibility of political opinion being used as a smokescreen for religious discrimination.

Again the House is facing a difficult problem, which we all understand and to which we are trying to seek roughly the same solution. In the end a judgment has to be made between the Bill as drafted and the amendment moved by the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Bradford). In Northern Ireland there is a close relationship between political and religious views. I have met Protestants who are in favour of Republican regimes and philosophies and I have met Catholics who are in favour of the Union, but the occasions when one meets such people are sufficiently rare for us to make a mental note when it occurs.

The question is, while we are attempting basically to remove religious discrimination, what do we do in respect of political discrimination? The solution which the Government have adopted, with certain specific exemptions made in the Bill, is that we would move against discrimination in terms of employment on both religious and political grounds, whereas Opposition Members say that only where political discrimination can be allied with discrimination on religious grounds should we bring in the provisions of the Bill. The struggle is to try to get the right balance.

On reflection I would like to keep the Bill as it is, because the close coincidence between religious and political discrimination in Northern Ireland is such that we ought to draw the bounds of absence of discrimination as widely as possible. In any case, there is nothing particularly morally attractive about discriminating against people, in terms of employment, on political grounds either. From that point of view, I think there is some justification for the agency bringing political views into the ambit of its investigations. Having reached that conclusion, I must urge the House to reject the amendment.

I feel that the Minister of State gave a fair statement of the real difficulties and the dilemma which Clause 16 attempts but, on his admission as well as in our view, fails to solve. His case is that in the end we cannot solve it and that we have to opt for more or less than we intended. There is no doubt about our intention, if we can compass it, and that is to avoid religious discrimination escaping the Bill because it may be represented as discrimination on political grounds. I think that during the long time we spent in Committee there was general agreement that that was the object. However, . the difficulty is how to identify political discrimination which is really a cloak for religious discrimination.

In the amendment we have attempted to solve the problem by saying that both elements must be present. Therefore, in applying its mind to a proposition the agency, and eventually a court, would take the two concepts together so that it would be impossible simply to run out by saying that it was only on political grounds, because a man was a Unionist or a Republican, that one was admittedly discriminating against him. I think it is unsatisfactory to take the alternative course. In Committee our original amendment was to omit all political opinion. That is the minimal solution, but the maximal solution, which is what is contained in the Bill, is also open to objection.

3.0 p.m.

The Minister of State said that political opinion in Northern Ireland is closely linked with religious belief, but it is only one difference of political opinion which is linked with religious belief. For example, the difference of political opinion between the right hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Craig) and myself has nothing to do with religious beliefs. I am not sure how he and I stand relatively in religious belief, because in these debates we tend to oversimplify and too rigidly to classify that difference in religious belief, but there is what could be a bitter political division, which can result in undoubted discrimination, which has nothing to do with religious belief and is as purely political in Northern Ireland as differences in this country between Socialism and—if there is still such a thing—Conservatism.

We are saying in the Bill that we cannot deal with what we want to deal with and that, therefore, we must embrace something larger. The Minister of State, like his predecessors, sought to justify that by arguing that discrimination on grounds of political opinion is not a good thing anyhow and therefore, even if it has nothing to do with the purposes of the Bill and the special circumstances of Northern Ireland, we might as well hook it in too. We who represent Northern Ireland constituencies are not happy with that position. Whatever may be the debate on religious discrimination in Northern Ireland—and we shall be briefly returning to it in the debate on Third Reading—we would certainly say that, if it is to be the law of a part of the United Kingdom that one may not discriminate on grounds of political opinion in the natural and ordinary sense, that ought to apply to the whole of the United Kingdom. We are not prepared in Northern Ireland to be put in the dock and to be placed under a special constraint which does not apply to the rest of the kingdom.

My conclusion from all this—this is one of the most important issues in the framing of the Bill—is that we are left with something that is inherently unsatisfactory. We are left with an extension of the purview of the operations of the agency which is not justified by the purposes of the Bill. We are left facing a failure to define in statutory form what we all of us know we mean and want to bring within the scope of the Bill, excluding everything else.

This, therefore, I am afraid—I say this as much of the Minister of State's attempt as of our own—is a confession of failure. I do not think that a. confession of failure is something which is particularly agreeable to register in the Lobbies, but it ought to be registered as candidly as possible in the debates. My hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Bradford), therefore, who has been one of those who have given their attention in Committee and since to trying to find a solution, will find himself facing the disagreeable conclusion that we have tried and we have failed. In failing, however, we are in the company of the Government, except that they have failed in the opposite direction to that in which we have failed.

I beg to move Amendment No. 52, in page 17, line 18, leave out from'23' to first 'an' in line 19, and insert 'while'.

With this we shall take Government Amendment No. 87. We shall also take the following amendments:

No. 53, in page 17, line 20, leave out 'may be brought'.

No. 54, in page 17, line 20, at end insert 'in respect of that Act are pending'.

The purpose of the amendment is to prevent the concurrence in time of jurisdiction, if I may slightly misuse the expression, between the agency and any other resource, but not to eliminate it altogether. It is clearly undesirable that both the agency and some other instance of appeal should be seized of the same action at the same time. But it does not follow from that that an action which has been considered by an instance of appeal from one point of view should therefore be outside the purview of the agency in the context of its function.

Our three amendments seek to eliminate concurrence in time while preserving the two alternative jurisdictions where there is scope for two aspects, both of which may be the subject of appeal.

I understand the purpose of this amendment and I have put down Amendment No. 87 with a view to partially meeting the objective of the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell).

The problem can be illustrated by two examples. I accept what the right hon. Gentleman says about the purpose of the Bill being that if there is a remedy available under some other machinery, the Fair Employment Agency does not consider the case. The right hon. Gentleman would like the other machinery to consider the problem first, with the agency being able to intervene at a subsequent stage after the exhaustion of the first machinery.

However, that would lead to problems in certain cases, including removal from the register or roll of nurses or from the roll of midwives. If a professional body moves to do that, an aggrieved individual may appeal to the High Court.

I do not say it would be inappropriate but it would certainly be a matter for deep constitutional consideration and philosophical contemplation to propose that there should be an appeal from the High Court to the agency and that the agency, which is an administrative body and, at the most, quasi-judicial, should have a right to review decisions of the High Court. To British constitutional man, the highest form of judicial consideration is a court of law and it would not be wise for the agency to be able to review decisions of a court of law.

Another example is the case of a man who felt aggrieved at the refusal of a licence to hatch and rear poultry. He may appeal to a panel of three lawyers under the Poultry Improvement (Northern Ireland) Act 1968 and may think that the panel, which is a quasi-judicial body appointed by the Department of Agriculture, had rejected his appeal on sectarian or religious grounds, leaving him with a sense of grievance. There might be a good argument for a reference from that body to the agency and the purpose of my amendment is to meet this sort of case.

If the right hon. Member for Down, South and his hon. Friends withdraw their amendments and accept mine, where an appeal against removal from a roll by professional bodies lies to a court of law, that court will be the end of the matter. Where it lies to a quasi-judicial body, the agency will be able to consider the case.

I am grateful to the Minister of State for the careful attention he has evidently given to the problem ventilated in Committee and for the ingenuity of his proposed solution. The Minister's amendment is starred and when I first saw it this morning, I failed to recognise that it was even a partial solution. However, I recognise that there is a real logic in the hon. Gentleman's amendment and the arguments he puts for it.

I take one of his examples—the case of a nurse struck off the roll—to think it through. The nurse might be struck off the roll purportedly for incompetence or for some other professional deficiency. If he or she took the view that the striking off the roll was discriminatory, the indications that it was discriminatory could be brought out by the aggrieved person before a court. Therefore, the discriminatory aspect could be covered by the alternative instance of appeal where, as in that case, it is the High Court.

On the other hand, the Minister said that the amendment would eliminate the possibility of a decision which falls to be taken on grounds which have nothing to do with religious discrimination, such as whether premises are suitable for rearing chickens, which for all I know might oust an appeal to the board on the ground that it was merely a cloak for discrimination and was a twisted judgment. I believe that we have probably got as near as we are likely to get to the right answer in this respect, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

I beg to move Amendment No. 59, in page 20, line 28, leave out from 'under' to end of line 30, and insert:

'this section, the parties shall be the Agency and the appellant'.

We debated this matter in fair detail in Committee, and at that stage there was a fair amount of confusion. The Minister assured us that he would consider our comments.

This part of the clause deals with the right of an appeal of an employee or employer against a decision by the agency. If the agency, in investigating a complaint of discrimination, finds an employer has been guilty of discrimination, the employer may appeal to the county court and the parties to the action will be the employer and the agency. If, on the other hand, the agency finds that there has not been discrimination, the employee who is complaining can appeal to the county court as well, only in that event it is not the agency and the employee who are parties at court but the employee and the employer.

At one stage in Committee the Minister defended that situation on the ground that the agency could not be a party because it had to defend the employee, but the agency would have made a finding after careful investigation, ruling against the employee, having found that there was not religious discrimination. The Minister was suggesting that the agency would go to the courts and act on behalf of the employee against the employer on a decision at which it had arrived.

We say by way of the amendment that in any appeal brought under this section the parties should be the agency and whoever is making the appeal. I hope that now consideration has been given to this matter the Minister will be able to explain the reasons for rejection if he is to reject the amendment, or for accepting it, if that is to be the case. I hope that in doing so he will use words such as "employee" and "employer". When we use words such as "complainant" and "respondent" I become somewhat confused. I am sure that others become confused as well.

I can assure the hon. Member for Armagh (Mr. McCusker) that there is unanimity in the House as regards his last sentence. I shall endeavour to meet his wishes in that respect.

If there is any advantage in myself having taken over this Bill in its concluding stages from my predecessor, the right hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme), it is that a different mind is brought to bear on some of these tricky little matters. I devoted myself to the consideration of this problem and I have come up with a view which is the same as that of my predecessor.

3.15 p.m.

On the face of it, it looks a little unfair. If the agency considers a complaint by an employee that he has been unfairly discriminated against by his employer and finds that there is no discrimination, the employee takes the agency, not the employer, to the county court. On the other hand, if the agency finds that there is discrimination and the employer does not like that, the employer does not take the agency to the county court: the parties then are the employer and the employee. The arguments is that the employer is in an unfair position, because the agency is the other party when the employee appeals, and the employer is the person appealed against in the second case——

It is the other way round.

I apologise to the House. The matter is entirely the other way round.

If there is a finding of non-discrimination against the employee, he is not in the position of being accused of moral inadequacy. If some one is found guilty of discrimination, there is an element of moral reprobation, but a complaint of discrimination by an employee which fails does not produce that sort of stigma against the employee.

If the employer is accused of religious discrimination, and the agency believes that that is true, and the employer wants to appeal against that decision, we think that the employer should have the right to argue his case before the county court, and should not have the case argued on his behalf by the agency. The moral reprobation in that case is such that it should be left to the employers to argue his case in public before the county court. For that reason, the existing procedure should be followed. I apologise to the House for causing confusion by getting the argument back to front.

I was warned by my hon. Friend the Member for Armagh (Mr. McCusker) not to confuse the House further by anything that I may say. I shall endeavour to comply with his request, but in doing so may run the risk of over-simplification.

Subsections (2) and (3) deal respectively with appeals against a finding. In each case the finding is the finding of the agency. The natural assumption is that, as the appellant is appealing against a finding of the agency in both cases, the parties are the aggrieved person and the agency which caused the grievance of the aggrieved person. I still cannot see that that simple deduction is not the most just.

I can see at least two disagreeable consequences which can arise from subsection (5). The imbalance of subsection (5) means that if the agency finds for the employer, the employee has to go for the employer direct instead of going against the agency. I cannot think that that can be conducive to good industrial relations or to the harmonious development of employment. I can imagine without much difficulty a complainant who, having gone to the agency and having been told by the agency "You have nothing to complain about, my dear friend", says "I do not agree with you", and goes to the court against the agency. What does not seem to me to be right is that he should then take his employer to court to prove that which the agency, which was established a priori for the purpose, did not find. That seems to me to be likely to cause the worst possible feeling—that, failing with the agency, the employee puts the employer in the clock, as it were, in court.

The second difficulty which I think arises—I think I am right here—is over the matter of costs. If in both cases the agency is the other party, the allocation of the costs and the bearing of the costs by the public, where the agency is a party, will be on the same footing whether the finding was for or against the complainant. Those seem to me to be two grounds on which the commonsense view of what is the implication of subsections (2) and (3) is justified.

I think I note that a certain amount of consultation is even now taking place. Once again we are in the difficulty that, being in the second House and drawing nigh the end, we are very limited for opportunities for reconsideration, but I am sure that that will not prevent the Minister of State, if there is any ground for looking at this matter again, from finding some method of doing so, such is the candour with which he and his colleagues have conducted the Bill from the start.

I am grateful for the further attempt by the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) to explain the situation to the House. What I want to achieve, and what I thought I had achieved before I came to the House and considered the wording of the Bill, is that, where there is a decision by the agency against the employer that he has discriminated, the employer will have the right to argue his case in the county court and not leave it to the agency.

There is an element of moral reprobation about religious discrimination which is imported by the Bill and which I believe that people should have a full opportunity to refute in public if they feel that injustice has been done to them. That is the essential point.

I am not sure what one can do about the revision of the wording if on reflection I find that the wording does not coincide with what I understood it to provide. However, as a result of listening to the debate I think that it is a difficulty of exposition rather than of wrong drafting that is at stake. For that I apologise to the House most profusely, but it is a fairly complex matter. I regret that there is not a great deal that one can do at this stage. I will certainly bear the matter in mind.

We are not complaining about that. We fully accept and understand that where an allegation has been sustained by the agency against an employer, the appeal to the county court will be one in which the parties will be the employer and the agency which found against him.

We are concerned about a case in which an appeal has been made against a decision by the agency and has not been upheld. In such circumstances the employee who complained in the first place can appeal against the decision of the agency. The difference is, however, that when the employee goes to the court the other party is not the agency but the employer. Therefore, the employer is the other party to the appeal even though the body which made the decision—the agency—is not.

We agree precisely with what the Minister of State said in the first place. The difficulty is that in the alternative the agency is not the other party.

There is no doubt that the argument that costs are borne does not necessarily apply in practice. I do not know what the procedures will be with regard to costs of hearings before the agency.

In any case, there is provision that, where the parties cannot afford the costs, legal aid will be available before the county court. Therefore, I do not think that is a particularly relevant Point, in that nobody who is not capable of bearing costs will be asked to do so. I see the point made by the hon. Member for Armagh (Mr. McCusker), but that is the way in which the Bill is to be left, and in the circumstances I prefer to stand my ground on this point and ask the House to reject the amendment.

Because our minds are not clear on this matter, and because there has been some confusion about it, I regret that the Minister is not prepared to consider the matter further.

The situation will be that an employee, having made an allegation against his employer and having had the matter diligently examined by the agency—which will consider the issue thoroughly and sympathetically—will be told that he has no ground for complaint. He may then appeal to the county court, and he will appear there with his employer. It is the employer who will have the task of dealing with a matter considered by the agency.

I do not think that that will result in harmony between the employer and employee, because in the interim period some satisfactory working arrangement may have been come to between them. We object to the fact that the employee has to take his employer to court to fight a case when the decision has been taken by the agency.

I beg to move Amendment No. 61, in page 23, line 6, after second 'in', insert 'all'.

This is a purely drafting amendment. We noted what was said in Committee by the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell). The purpose of the amendment is to achieve uniformity of usage throughout the Bill by amending the phrase "in the circumstances" to read "in all the circumstances". One finds this form of words used in about five other clauses.

I beg to move Amendment No. 62, in page 24, line 9, after 'contravenes', insert:

', or has any effect in consequence of a contravention of,'.

This is another drafting amendment to ensure that subsection (2), which deals with the power of a court to revise a contract, is adequately aligned with subsection (1).

I beg to move Amendment No. 63, in page 26, line 14, at end insert—

"(d) employment by a political organisation ".

The amendment is identical to an amendment that we tabled in Committee and we were told by the Minister that, without prejudging the issue, he would endeavour to look at it to see whether the wording was right. The point, which is a matter of good sense, has not been met, although Ministers have agreeably and to our satisfaction met several of the other points that we made. This matter remains to be resolved.

The argument is that subsection (3), excluding from the Bill jobs whose "essential nature" requires a particular political persuasion, does not necessarily cover employment by political parties, and this was made clear by the then Under-Secretary of State, now the Minister of State, who said that there should be no general exclusions except when particular affiliations were

"a bona fide occupational qualification."—[Official Report, Standing Committee H, 1st April 1976; c. 444.]

The hon. Gentleman indicated also that it was for the agency to decide which jobs in a political organisation fell into this category. If that were so, we could be reduced to the situation in which the agency would have to assess and clarify the work by all persons employed by a political party and institute a sort of job segregation between those who were employed in functions whose "essential nature" required a particular political view, and those which did not.

Presumably, the secretary of a political organisation, agents and confidential typists would require political loyalty, though there was one intervention by the now Minister of State which rather indicated that he did not accept even that. I suppose one could argue that a public relations officer of a political party could do his job effectively, according to his professional talents, without being an adherent of the party employing him.

3.30 p.m.

The same could be said perhaps about the party's accountant, those doing research for the party, typing for the party, answering the telephone for the party, and the caretakers at party premises. But even if that is the case, I am not sure that enthusiasm for the cause of the party would not be a better qualification.

In Standing Committee I said:

"I do not know whether the headquarters of the SDLP employs a cleaner, but if it does I would not expect it to employ one without having regard to the political opinions of that person. Similarly, I would not expect Ulster Unionists not to have regard to the political opinions of the kind man who unpadlocks and re-padlocks the gate, to allow entry to and exit from 3 Glengall Street."

It would surely be undesirable to bring about a situation in which party employees are divided into those who can be trusted and those who cannot.

In Committee the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) said:

"I do not believe that the agency or a court would find it either practicable or reasonable to start investigating the kind of accounts or the kind of letters that a certain typist was commonly required to type."—[Official Report, Standing Committee H, 1st April 1976; c. 443–6.]

It is common sense that employees of political organisations need to operate with esprit de corps and a solidarity that cannot be encompassed by the narrow definition of "bona fide occupational qualification". It is doubtful whether Conservatives are employed at Transport House or in King Street. I am sure there are not too many reds under the desks at Conservative Central Office.

The hon. Member could have fooled me.

In Committee I also said that it was not unreasonable sometimes for a political party to insist on adherence to the party by one taking a job at party premises or offices. If we are rigid on this matter, the legislation will be made a little ridiculous in Northern Ireland and additional burdens may be placed on the courts. I hope that the Minister will agree to the necessity of making the exemption from the Bill, which is the purpose of the amendment.

It would be right to congratulate the official Oppositon upon their only contribution to the consideration of the Bill. They only managed it by a whisker, because the amendment would have been starred had these deliberations taken place yesterday. No doubt they were frying other fish and failed to observe that the Bill, of which they were supposed to be in support, was coming up for consideration and that there were major matters left over from the Committee stage.

I realise that this will only put me further in the bad books of the hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. van Straubenzee) who considers it most deplorable that one should attempt to improve a Bill against which one has voted on Second Reading. But the Conservative Party did not vote against it on Second Reading and it is therefore somewhat paradoxical that they should have shown so little interest in improving it.

This is an illustration of one of the difficulties that we have got ourselves into as a result of our admitted failure—as all of us were obliged to admit—to get the right definition of what we mean by "political opinion" within the scope of the Bill.

If we had been able to do that, the problem to which the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mr. Biggs-Davison) has correctly referred would not arise. There would be no difficulty in saying that a political party would not discriminate against an employee on the grounds of his religion provided that the political views of that potential employee coincided with those of the political organisation.

Certainly in the Ulster Unionist party, which by its charter and rules excludes any consideration of the religion of persons, we should be directing our attention, in selecting employees, to the strength and fervour of their Unionist belief. There would be no problem in discrimination on religious grounds being outlawed.

This shows that when one submits to bring more into a Bill than one knows the Bill is designed to cope with, one is bound to suffer the kind of inconveniences—no doubt many more will transpire in the course of time—which the sole, single, virgin and unique amendment proposed by the official Opposition refers to.

I feel that I am back on grounds that I comprehend fully when we talk about the offering of jobs by political parties as opposed to complex appeal provisions involving the Fair Employment Agency.

The object of the Bill is to reduce to the absolute minimum the exceptions to the employment that the agency may supervise. By way of illustration only, and not wishing to go into all the arguments for and against, I would mention that when it came to the question of employment in schools we did not say that such employment would be exempt from the operations of the agency. We said that employment as a teacher only would be exempt. Thus, under the agency it is possible for Protestants to be employed as typists, cleaners and canteen workers in Catholic schools and vice versa.

Similarly, we have drafted the Bill as it is because we realise that where there is an essential political function to be performed by somebody employed by a political party, that person will obviously have to be an adherent of the party concerned. But perhaps if the party runs a canteen at its headquarters, the manageress need not necessarily be an adherent of that party, unless it were found that she was producing bad cooking as a way to reduce the party's morale. In that case her departure would not be regarded as anything other than fair dismissal, and there would be protection for the party.

This is the essential matter. Obviously, if one goes into the philosophy of that sort of thing, one can dream up all sorts of knotty problems in the House on a Friday afternoon. But, if it is to earn its keep, I am sure that the agency will be able to sort out these problems by the application of fairly simple commonsense rules.

The matter was not dreamed up today. It was fully debated in Committee, and we were given to understand that the Government would seek in some way to meet our point. I do not think that it is a tiny matter. It is one of some substance. I do not ask leave to withdraw the amendment, but I shall not press it to a Division.

I beg to move Amendment No. 64, in page 26, line 18, after 'holding', insert, or not holding,'.

With this we may take Government Amendments Nos. 65 and 66.

These are drafting amendments to meet a point made by the Opposition in Committee—that where the non-holding of any religious or political belief is essential to any employment, that should be taken into consideration.

I beg to move Amendment No. 67, in page 26, line 30, after 'to', insert or to'.

With this we may take Government Amendment No. 68.

These are drafting amendments to deal with the temporary exemption of small firms from the Bill. They make it clear that the temporary exemption applies both to employers and employrnent by employers. That was in some doubt. Some of the provisions of the Bill are drafted in terms of employers—for example, Clauses 7 and 9—and others in terms of employment—for example, in Clause 11. Therefore, we felt that we should make it clear that it applied to both groups.

I apologise for what may be obtuseness, but I am unable to construe the amendment, in page 26, line 30, after the word "to" insert "or to". The subsection would then read:

" No provision of Parts II to IV shall apply—

(a) during the two years beginning with the commencement of this Act, to or to employment by an employer"'.

That may be grammar somehow, but how it is grammar escapes me. Certain sounds, which come from the surrounding Benches, suggest that I am not alone in my predicament.

I wonder whether something has gone wrong and whether therefore—I am continuing to afford an opportunity for reflection, over-awed as we are by the solemn fact that this is our last chance as there is no revising chamber capable of restoring grammar which we have destroyed—we ought to pause upon the fateful brink and consider whether we are inserting this additional preposition in the right place. I gather from various indications that we may be in sight of grammatical help. In that hope, I shall resume my seat.

If the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) assumes that there is a comma after "to"—the subsection then reads

"during the two years beginning with the commencement of this Act, to, or to employment by an employer who employs not more than 25 persons "—

it might make the matter clearer to him.

Similarly,

"(b) during the year following those two years, to, or to employment by an employer who employs not more than 10 persons".

This matter applies to the employer or to employment by an employer, and that brings employees in—I think.

With that lesson in grammar, I shall now put the Question.