It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair this afternoon, Lady Winterton. I will speak to amendment 10 and my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare will hope to catch your eye to speak to amendments 196 and 197.

Amendment 10 is probing. One of the organisations that support the age discrimination legislation applying in whole to those under 18 got very excited and fulsomely supported my amendment. However, it will be disappointed when it finds out that the amendment is intended to probe and to provoke a discussion on the appropriate scope of the Bill and why the Government have taken such decisions.

For the benefit of those who do not have the clause in front of them, it is intended to amend age discrimination provisions and states:

“(1) This Part does not apply to the protected characteristic of—

(a)age, so far as relating to persons who have not attained the age of 18;”.

The amendment would remove that age restriction. I want to make the point to the Minister that a number of outside organisations have highlighted the fact that discrimination against young people takes place. I expect that we will discuss that in more detail when we consider some of the other age discrimination parts of the Bill. Young people may experience discrimination on the basis of their age. With older people, there is what we could call—for the purpose of the debate—good discrimination and bad discrimination. We say that young people should and should not do a wide range of things, and we put age limits on when they can and cannot do certain things, based on protecting them.

Providers of other services might also make judgments, aside from those statutory rules, to set age limits that they feel are appropriate, based on the enjoyment of services for other customers. For example, some restaurants and all sorts of other providers have age limits that are not necessarily to do with alcohol supply, but with the age of children in that environment, such as insisting that parents accompany their children.

I understand the sense of some of the issues raised. Some young people are perfectly capable of doing certain things at one age, whereas others of the same age might not be. The difficulty is in setting an objective test, or way of putting that into legislation. That may be why the Government have decided to exclude those under 18 from this part of the Bill. The amendment’s purpose is to test that and enable the Minister to set out the Government’s thinking in more detail, so that it is on the record and we can probe it to see whether any of the examples given by those organisations hold water.