Wes Streeting
MP for Ilford North · Labour · United Kingdom
“We hope for the best and plan for the worst in terms of the continuation of this war, but we are also actively working to prepare for conditions in which a ceasefire has been agreed by Ukraine, with Ukraine and, from our perspective, for Ukraine.”
“The threats we face are not only evolving; they are getting closer to home. Every day, the UK and our allies encounter espionage, cyber-attacks and military posturing by hostile states.”
“One discipline I have to bring to the Ministry of Defence, drawing on my experience at the Department of Health and Social Care and the NHS, is to ensure there is no culture of routine overspending, that we are improving productivity, that we deliver value for money and that we recognise that the money we are investing in defence comes wi…”
“With permission, I will make my first statement to the House as Secretary of State for Defence on Ukraine, the ongoing threat from Russia and the Government’s approach. It is not yet clear whether freedom or tyranny will define the 21st century. What is clear is that the United Kingdom will not be a bystander in that struggle.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that very serious and important issue. She will understand that, as a matter of policy, I will not comment on intelligence, but I will address the reports she has raised.”
“We know that this Prime Minister and this Chancellor are both fully committed to funding our nation’s defence, including meeting our NATO commitment of 3.5% by 2035 and setting out an earlier 3% commitment at the next spending review.”
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“I have always thought it impossible to demand outstanding BBC services while also demanding the end of the licence fee, and although the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) gave it a go, I still think it is impossible. The BBC should pay close attention to the speech made by the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), because although I do not think it would become impossible to defend the licence fee, it would certainly become a great deal harder if we lost the kind of unique content that includes BBC regional political coverage. There is nothing like it. It is an important part of the BBC’s public service remit.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Warrington South (Andy Carter), and I congratulate the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) on securing this important Adjournment debate. I hope that the level of interest will not be lost on the Leader of the House and that he might consider trying to restore Westminster Hall debates as soon as possible, so that we can have more of these sorts of debates, on a range of issues, including and beyond covid-19, that our constituents care deeply about. It is also a welcome novelty to be here in a debate where people are celebrating the contribution that the BBC makes to our national life. Every great nation is built on a set of shared values and shared institutions, and the BBC is one of our great institutions. We deride it and lose it at our peril.”
“Of course, as the Minister outlined, the clause improves conditions for people accessing such schemes, whether the Windrush compensation scheme or the troubles permanent disablement payment scheme, so we have no objection to the clause.”
“It is a source of deep regret, to put it mildly, that fewer than one in 20 people who have made claims under the Windrush compensation scheme have been paid so far. I want to take the opportunity, as we are discussing clause 99, to restate again our view that the Government must act much more quickly. People are owed that compensation, although the financial compensation will never fully compensate for the emotional and mental trauma that British citizens suffered as a result of the Windrush scandal. It is appalling that we have added insult to injury by moving so slowly on compensation claims, even where they have been made.”
“It is a pleasure to be here for what is likely to be our final day of line-by-line scrutiny of the Bill. It is important to remember that the reason why we are discussing clause 99 is in no small part, as the Minister alluded to, due to the Windrush compensation scheme, which is the culmination and inevitable consequence of the appalling circumstances of the aggressive and deeply destructive hostile environment pursued by the Government over the course of the past 10 years. As Wendy Williams said in her review, the Windrush scandal, which saw so many people’s lives completely disrupted, and in many cases ruined, was the result of “foreseeable and avoidable” systematic operational failings, so it is right that the Windrush compensation scheme was established. The House has considered those issues many times.”
“As the capacity and scope of technological change continues to widen, it is even more important that Ministers and civil servants think very carefully about the application of technology and whether it is indeed right and proper for a decision to be made by an automated process rather than a human being. Those are much bigger, wider principled and ethical considerations. For the reasons that the Minister has outlined, clause 100 is a perfectly reasonable and sensible provision, and it is one that we are happy to support.”
“It is important to lay down a cautionary note about how automated processes and algorithms are used, particularly when it comes to decision making that can have substantial impact on citizens, organisations and businesses. Writing in Tax Journal , Catherine Robins and Steven Porter of Pinsent Masons were critical of the Government’s announcements, arguing that: “Some of HMRC’s powers can have very serious consequences for taxpayers and the fact that a human being has to decide to exercise them is an important safeguard, which should not be eroded.” I share their concern, up to a point. I think it is important that there are safeguards, checks and balances and, ultimately, opportunities for people to appeal to human judgment, to account for technical error and to appeal technical error.”
“The Government have brought forward clause 100 for obvious reasons. As we have heard from the Minister, it is patently absurd that we would be in position where HMRC was dragged through legal processes simply because section 8 notices were issued used automated processes, for example. There is obviously a good case to be made for applying ever-changing technology to improve the efficiency of processes within HMRC’s systems, to try to improve the customer experience of HMRC customers, which, as we know as constituency MPs, can sometimes be very good and sometimes be absolutely abysmal. Where HMRC can automate processes to free up people time, the focus should be on redeploying those people to try to give people and the state overall a better service. There is nothing to quibble about there.”
“Let the message go out that people ought to act within not just the letter but the spirit of the law, and if they cannot find in themselves the moral scruples to do that, this House will have no hesitation whatsoever in changing the letter of the law to make sure that people do the right thing and pay their fair share.”
“Limited liability partnerships are a legitimate way of structuring business activity that is used successfully by the vast majority of LLPs that operate for profit. There is no doubt about any of that, but as we heard from the Minister this morning, there have been too many examples of LLPs being used for the purposes of minimising people’s tax liabilities, effectively to avoid tax. Of course, Opposition Members take a very dim view of that. Clause 101 seems to be a sensible provision, intended to help HMRC to close down tax-avoiding structures that use LLPs to generate and spread losses that the partners use to offset against their other personal income.”
“Next year’s finance Bill feels a long way away, and, because of the events we are living through, finance legislation and a finance Bill might be introduced sooner. On the basis of the merits of this policy and the impact it is likely to have on the use of plastics in our country—we certainly hope it will have such an impact—we would support the Government if they were presented with the opportunity to move further and faster. I urge the Minister to consider doing so.”
“For very obvious reasons, it is quite right to move ahead and use the tax system to incentivise good behaviour, to reduce our reliance on plastics, particularly products using new plastics, and to improve the take-up and use of recycled plastics. That is why this proposal received such widespread support in response to the Government’s consultation, and I recognise and welcome the fact that the Government responded favourably when the majority of respondents made representations about wanting the tax to be extended to imported filled plastic packaging. In his remarks, the Minister addressed some of the questions I had about the timetable for introducing draft legislation, and when we can expect it to be implemented.”
“When Ministers consider not just this Bill but impending decisions by the Treasury, I urge them to recognise the awful impact of covid-19 on local authorities. In responding to the Secretary of State’s plea to do whatever it takes to get their communities through the crisis, not only have their costs risen; their income has also fallen significantly. I urge Ministers to think carefully about the demands they place on local authorities, particularly in terms of loan repayments during this period, and to consider whether more could be done.”
“I will address the issue this afternoon, when debate the new clauses. There have been some rather unhelpful and misleading headlines about local authorities borrowing to invest in local projects. Of course, as with central Government, we will always be able to point to decisions that, though made with the best of intentions, do not work and incur a liability for the public purse. If public funds are not used widely, it is absolutely right that there should be scrutiny, lessons learned and accountability. It is fair to say, however, that in the vast majority of cases where local authorities have drawn on the Public Works Loan Board, their approach has been sensible, effective and well deployed. It is important that the facility continues to be made available to local authorities in the same way.”
“Not only was the public sector broadly hit by cuts, but local authorities felt the brunt because those cuts were both deep and front-loaded. The local authority response to those challenges over the course of the past decade has, to be frank, been remarkable. The same can be said for the ingenuity of many local authorities in making sensible and wise investments that not only improve the lives of their residents but generate income that can then be ploughed back into frontline services and mitigate the impact of central Government cuts. I think I speak for people right across the Local Government Association, regardless of their party, in saying that, as well as devolving power without resources, the Government have too often devolved blame. I hope that Ministers will consider that.”
“Clause 103 gives me an opportunity to speak to some of the challenges facing local authorities and the role that the Public Works Loan Board can play. I also want to knock on the head some of the assertions that have been made about local government finances and the sensible use of borrowing by local authorities across the country to invest in local infrastructure and works that benefit their residents. I speak not just as my party’s shadow Treasury spokesperson, but as a former deputy leader of the London Borough of Redbridge and a current vice-president of the Local Government Association. Local authorities have done a remarkable job managing their finances sensibly and effectively during a very difficult decade.”
“When local authorities were asked to do whatever it takes—and whatever it took—to get communities through the covid-19 pandemic, they took the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government at his word and they delivered. Now, they expect to be reimbursed, as was promised. The Government have given some additional funding to local authorities, but it is a drop in the ocean when compared with the cost pressures they face and the fall in income. With that, I am content to support the clause, and I hope that the wider points that it has enabled me to make have been heard and well understood by the Treasury, and not just the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.”
“I hope that Ministers will take that on board and that they will listen very carefully to the representations from the Local Government Association, which is cross-party but Conservative controlled. We will do our best to remedy that in next May’s local elections. I hope that the representations Ministers receive from Conservative LGA leaders—and not just Opposition party representatives —will help them understand the challenges that local authorities are facing, particularly as they have been unable to collect around £1 billion in combined business rates and council tax income during the crisis so far. I also impress upon Ministers the importance of Government keeping their word to local government.”
“I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. The Government have to look very carefully at the liabilities facing local authorities and how they are having to balance them against other demands and challenges. As I have said, in addition to creating cost pressures, the pandemic has had an impact on local authority income, too. In that respect, local authorities really are all in this together, whether they are Labour, Conservative or SNP. There are challenges for local authorities right across the United Kingdom. As we will discuss when we come to the new clauses, some communities have been affected more than others. None the less, the challenges are universal.”
“489WH.] She made those remarks back in April 2019; it is now June 2020. I am not sure that, in the year that has passed since she made those comments, the situation has changed particularly and that things have improved. The delayed roll-out is something that has been widely welcomed, but it is crucial that the Government use this time wisely. It is not clear from the year that has just passed that the Government will use the next year any better.”
“That message was heard loud and clear by the self-employed, but if we are asking them to pay a greater contribution, we also have to address the inherent challenge and, in many cases, the injustice around their employment protections and the levels of social protection and social insurance that people enjoy if they are employed, as opposed to self-employed. As the shadow Chancellor has said, having addressed this issue many times both in her current role and in her previous role: “We really need a joined-up approach to the issues that brings together the consideration of tax and employment law and levels up protections for the self-employed, as well as dealing with the current implications of the tax system that boost bogus self-employment.” —[ Official Report, 4 April 2019; Vol. 657, c.”
“Those concerns were expressed in the House of Lords report entitled, “Off-payroll working: treating people fairly”, which concluded that the Government must address IR35’s inherent flaws and unfairness, a point that was supported by the ICAEW. The Opposition urge the Government to use this time wisely. We believe it is necessary for the Government to take a broader approach in order to modernise the law on employment status and to look at how it interrelates with tax status, so that we have a genuinely joined-up approach that brings together the issues of tax and employment law. Notwithstanding the planned roll-out of IR35, the Chancellor made it very clear, when he announced the self-employment income support scheme, that there will be consequences for future Treasury policy and future tax arrangements for Britain’s self-employed.”
“The true picture of self-employment in the country is a lot more complicated than that, and huge numbers of self-employed people make an enormous contribution to the economy and who provide a whole range of services that benefit citizens across the country and businesses more generally. It is right that the Government have taken the decision to delay the implementation of the roll-out until April 2021 due to coronavirus. The Opposition would again impress on the Government the need to use the additional time ahead of implementation to provide an additional review and to learn from the mistakes of the public sector roll-out and the continuing anxieties about the planned private sector roll-out.”
“Some of the anxiety arises from concerns that the Treasury, and the Government more broadly, sometimes have a tendency to think of the self-employed as if they fell into only two categories of people. The first is the very wealthy, who use self-employment status to avoid paying their fair share of tax, which should obviously be clamped down on. The second is the very low paid, who work in parts of the economy that are deemed unproductive—even to the extent that some people would think it desirable that such workers were not engaged in those forms of employment, as if that were the best way to tackle the UK’s poor productivity statistics.”
“Our position on IR35 has been well rehearsed in previous and recent debates on the Floor of the House, but let me revisit some of those points, because this debate is closely followed outside Parliament and matters to people across the country. Self-employment is a vital part of the UK economy. People who are genuinely self-employed deserve to be properly supported while also ensuring that everyone pays the right amount of tax. Historically, the tax arrangements for self-employed people have differed from those for people on payroll, reflecting the fact that self-employed people have lower levels of protection in areas such as holiday pay, sick pay and other rights and benefits that people would enjoy if they were employed on payroll. Clearly the system has also been subject to abuse, and it is right that we tackle that abuse.”
“The hon. Member for Glasgow Central makes a reasonable case—that will be a running theme throughout a number of new clauses, not least when we turn to new clause 3 in the afternoon session. I will make the points I want to make about the importance of reviewing the geographical impact of measures in the Finance Bill at that point, but I concur with her remarks.”
“But the way in which decisions are taken in Whitehall has a direct effect on not just town halls but communities right across our country.”
“As TheCityUK has argued, “the crisis should prompt policymakers to consider anew some long-standing potential solutions to the problem of regional inequality, such as devolution of political and potentially fiscal powers.” It is important that, at every Budget, Finance Bill and fiscal event, the Treasury looks carefully at whether we are moving the dial in the right direction when it comes to tackling the gross regional inequality in our country. I think it is fair to say that, under successive Governments, the Treasury has had a much more centralising tendency and cultural mindset than other Departments. Of course, it is easy to understand why that is and the appeal of being able to make big decisions and pull big policy levers that have an impact across Government and the country.”
“Our capital city is a truly global city, and its success is inseparable from our national success, but London’s political leaders and our business leaders recognise the need for a more balanced regional economic settlement and the benefits that that would bring to all of us, wherever we live and work. As we think about the crisis that we are living through and the recovery that we hope will follow, let us take heed of the warning from the New Local Government Network and so many others that recovery cannot be a synonym for the resurrection of business as usual. It cannot be a coincidence that our country has one of the most imbalanced economies in the developed world and also one of the most centralised systems of government.”
“The weighting of the average sectoral impact, measured by the Office for Budget Responsibility against the distribution of each local authority’s gross value added by sector, concluded that the decline in economic output in parts of the midlands and the north-west could be as much as 50% and that nine out of the 10 worst affected local authorities will be located in those regions. That is not to say that we should not be concerned about our major cities either. Edinburgh, in particular, has the highest level of exposure to the reduction in international tourist spending, with consequences for the city and surrounding regions. Indeed, I hope we can move away from the narrative of London versus the rest of the country.”
“According to the RSA, the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, rural areas and coastal towns in the north and south-west of England are most at risk of covid-19’s impact on unemployment. This involves many coastal towns, national parks and tourist hotspots, with economies dependent on hospitality, retail and tourism. The RSA identified the district council of Richmondshire in North Yorkshire, which forms part of the Chancellor’s constituency, as the most at-risk area. Meanwhile, KPMG’s chief economist in the UK believes that the west midlands could face the biggest impact. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) has been banging the drum for the west midlands economy, highlighting in particular the risks to manufacturing in the region.”
“People have seen their jobs disappear as a result of one of the largest deindustrialisations of any major nation, with production exported to countries with cheaper labour costs through outsourcing, or being lost altogether to labour-saving technology. That is why the so-called levelling-up agenda is so important, and it is made all the more pressing by the covid-19 pandemic. We know from the evidence emerging all the time that without an effective regional response from the Government, the economic crisis brought about by covid-19 risks entrenching existing inequalities in our country and creating new ones that, unchecked, might persist for decades.”
“The economic divisions in our country are not merely reflected through class inequality, but reflected and represented in our geography. Britain is home to nine of the 10 poorest regions in western Europe, but also the richest, in inner London. A child on free school meals in Hackney is still three times more likely to attend university than an equally poor child in Hartlepool. The gap in productivity between English regions is worth about £40 billion a year, with productivity in London and the south-east standing at 50% above the national average. The past 40 years have seen a significant decline in our country’s manufacturing base, with serious social consequences in former industrial towns and profound consequences for people’s lives and livelihoods—and our politics.”
“They have done a sterling job—it should be borne in mind that we do not have the resources of the civil service to support us through all this—and it is much appreciated. Ours is a great country, full of promise and opportunity. One of the richest countries in the world, we are home to world-class universities, entrepreneurs, captains of industry, groundbreaking scientists and inventors, globally renowned artists and a vibrant civil society. However, as we will consider across a number of our debates this afternoon, this is also a country of staggering inequality, intolerable poverty and wasted potential—and that is before we consider the impact of coronavirus on our country’s economic prospects. I am starting with new clause 3.”
“It is a pleasure to move new clause 3, in my name and those of my hon. Friends, and to speak to new clauses 18 and 21, which will be put forward by the hon. Member for Glasgow Central. As this is likely to be the last sitting for line-by-line scrutiny, I would like to take the opportunity to thank you, Mr Rosindell, and Ms McDonagh for so effectively chairing our proceedings in the course of that scrutiny. I thank the staff in the Public Bill Office for all their assistance in putting together various amendments and new clauses. I thank my own team in Westminster—in fact, not in Westminster but working from home—for the efforts that they have made in supporting me and other hon. Members throughout this process, and I thank staff working in the offices, or not in the offices, of other members of the shadow Treasury team.”
“I am grateful for that intervention. I was very encouraged by the recent policy position published by the leader of the Scottish Labour party and excitedly relayed to the rest of us by the shadow Secretary of State for Scotland, my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray). Scottish Labour has come out with some really bold proposals for how devolution could go even further, extending to home rule in Scotland. I know that that is not a position shared by the separatists in the Scottish National party. We could spend the rest of the afternoon discussing the merits or otherwise of Scottish independence, but, to allow SNP Committee members to get back home at the end of the day, perhaps we should not dwell on that this afternoon.”
“That is why this week we have called on the Chancellor to come forward with a full Budget in March—a back-to-work Budget focused on jobs. What gets measured is what counts. The Treasury will make better decisions and Parliament will be able to scrutinise more effectively if we look more closely at the impact of Treasury decisions on the issues that matter most to our country. That is why is it so important to consider the impact of the Bill on regional inequality, so I commend to the Committee new clause 3. I also indicate the official Opposition’s support for new clauses 18 and 21, which would look at the impact sector by sector and across a range of other important economic factors.”
“If we look at the GVA figures for the impact of the financial crisis sector by sector, and then we look at the OBR’s projected output figures, as the Resolution Foundation has done, we see such a stark contrast, sector by sector, between the standard deviation 10 years ago and the one projected now. That is why a one-size-fits-all approach to our economic response to coronavirus simply will not cut it. We of course recognise the steps that the Chancellor has already taken, and my hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor has been keen to work constructively with the Government on the economic response, as indeed have we all, but we are concerned about what lies ahead and about how the Chancellor is proposing to handle the economic response and the long-tail effects.”
“If we take the gross value added figures and look at the percentage change from March to April, we see a fall of 5% in the financial sector, for example, or 6% in agriculture, forestry and fishing. Compare that with a fall of 88% in hospitality, 40% in construction, 40% in arts, entertainment and recreation, and 24% in manufacturing. Those figures are extraordinary. What makes the country’s experience of this crisis so different from that of 10 years ago, in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, is that we are seeing that really significant variation.”
“Finance Bills, Budgets and other fiscal events are not simply number-crunching exercises, or processes of bureaucratic tidying up, as much of the Bill is concerned with, important though those often are; they also reflect the political priorities of the Government of the day and send a message to the country about the things that the Government value and want to achieve. Every one of them should move the dial on the big challenges facing our country in the right direction. That is why new clauses 18 and 21, tabled by the hon. Member for Glasgow Central, are also so important. The economic impact of covid-19 has been felt right across our economy but, as the ONS figures show, some sectors have been hit harder than others, and we know that some sectors will be hit harder for longer.”
“I will now pick some wounds in the other direction, because just as I have never understood how the SNP can be pro-union at a European level but hostile to it at a UK level, so too have I never understood the Conservative party’s anti-unionism in relation to the EU and its pro-Unionism in a UK context. In fact, returning to the economic matters addressed by the Bill, I have as much belief in the merits of the single market of the United Kingdom as I have in the merits of the single market of the European Union. Unfortunately, these questions have already been settled—in one case favourably; and in the other unfavourably, in my opinion. But I shall dry my remainer tears and return to our consideration of new clause 3—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] Government Members are cheering in all the wrong places.”
“I think that the economic benefits of the Union are so obvious and well rehearsed from the debate on Scottish independence and the referendum campaign, but for me this is not just a question of economics or a statistical debate about the merits of Unionism; it is also about the shared history, shared benefits, shared prosperity and shared identity of the United Kingdom. I have a great affection for Scotland as a country, and indeed for its history, its separate identity and its separate strength where policy there is different. For example, thinking back to my experience before entering this House, I have always greatly admired the Scottish higher education system, and the way in which issues such as quality enhancement are approached in Scotland. I just think that we are stronger together.”
“Perhaps when the hon. Lady returns to her constituency, she might reassure her constituents who worry about policy making at a UK Government level that, hopefully, we will have a Labour Government again before too long.”
“It is a pleasure to rise to move new clause 4, which asks that the Government review the impact of this Bill on the environment. As I said earlier in our discussions on the Bill, this is where the Government’s stated ambitions on tackling climate change are not yet matched by action.”
“I am concerned by the complacency of the speech that we have just heard from the Exchequer Secretary. I do not think it is sufficient to say that the UK is doing enough to tackle climate change and to meet our net zero ambition when all of the evidence suggests that that is not the case. That reinforces even further the case to run a proper impact assessment on the Bill. Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.”
“Almost half of people living in poverty today in the UK are disabled or live with someone who is. The Runnymede Trust has found that black African and Bangladeshi households have 10 times less wealth than white British households, and black Caribbean households have about 20p of wealth for every £1 of white British wealth. Around 18% of Bangladeshi workers are paid below the minimum wage, compared with 3% of their white counterparts. That is a reminder and recognition of the fact that although we use the term “black and minority ethnic” as a catch-all, there are many different experiences among people of different races and ethnicities. We have to pay attention to the different variables and factors that have an impact on people.”
“Women make up 69% of low-paid earners and the majority of people living in poverty, including 90% of lone parents, almost half of whom are living in poverty. Many of those women are disabled or face racial inequality, a reminder that although we understandably and rightly set out in legislation those protected characteristics one by one, the discrimination, prejudices and biases that people are subjected to are often intersectional. Sometimes people face discrimination, whether deliberate or otherwise, twofold, threefold or fourfold. Women are disproportion- ately likely to work in sectors that have been hardest hit by the lockdown we are experiencing as a result of coronavirus. Figures from the Institute for Fiscal Studies show that 36% of young women work in sectors that have been closed down, including restaurants, tourism and retail.”
“Unless there is a relentless and genuine commitment to tackling inequalities, they continue to persist. It is not just that people are victims of deliberate and conscious bias and discrimination. Often they are victims of unconscious bias and discrimination, and that is why the evidence and the data are so important. It is not enough just to reassure ourselves that we are nice people and we like treating one another fairly. We have to look at, and be guided by, the evidence. Even those of us with deep personal convictions when it comes to tackling inequality and injustice can make mistakes. We are all affected by biases and preconceptions, and we have to remain constantly alive to them. I do not think the picture painted in our country today is one we ought to be satisfied with.”
“We have seen that in this country. On discrimination against people based on their race, the indicators have improved. Action has been taken to tackle gender equality and the role of women in our society. The Labour Government delivered historic changes in terms of the treatment of LGBT people and established such a consensus that the coalition Government built on that record with legislation on equal marriage. The Disability Discrimination Act 2005 improved the treatment of disabled people. However, inequality is still present in our society and injustice is still too frequent. I am not sure we can say with the same sense of certainty I used to feel that the onward march of social progress is inevitable. Progress has to be defended otherwise it gets rolled back.”
“New clause 5 requires the Chancellor of the Exchequer to review the impact of the Bill on individuals or groups with protected characteristics defined under the Equality Act 2010. The Equality Act, passed by the last Labour Government, was one of the most important pieces of legislation that we passed. It aimed to accelerate the advance this country has made over successive decades in trying to eliminate the discrimination, prejudices and inequalities experienced by people on the grounds of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, religious beliefs and so on. Throughout my life, I have felt an almost certain sense of inevitability that Martin Luther King was right when he said that “the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice.” It implies the onward march of social progress.”