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The bill, which unites the various strands of diversity legislation, outlaws age discrimination and requires businesses to report on the gender pay gap, will now face final consideration by the House of Commons prior to receiving royal assent. It is expected to become law before the general election.

Amendments made by the Lords included a power to outlaw discrimination on the basis of caste; a ban on asking for health and disability information prior to making a job offer; and removing the ban on civil partnership ceremonies taking place in religious premises.

Harriet Harman, minister for women and equality, said: "I'm pleased that the equality bill has completed its third reading in the House of Lords and I want to thank our ministers in the Upper Chamber, Jan Royall and Glenys Thornton, for their hard work and commitment in steering it through to this stage. This is a historic piece of legislation that contains a range of new rights, powers and obligations to help the drive towards equality, including tackling the overarching inequality caused by where you are born and what your parents do for a living."

Darren Sherborne, head of employment at law firm Rickerbys, commented: "The equality bill is a real mixed bag. I believe everybody would agree that the various discrimination legislation requires some consolidation and this will be a welcome step for HR professionals who currently have to jump between one set of rules and another depending on the particular characteristics of an employee.

"The requirement for employers to report on the gender pay gap in their organisation will not only be incredibly onerous in some circumstances, but I suspect it may highlight previously unnoted inequality that may have a big impact for business in terms of cost at a time when those businesses need support."

And he continued: "The ban on pre-employment health questionnaires seems to me to be re-dressing and to a certain extent undoing the ruling in the case of Cheltenham Borough Council v Laird. In that case the Court explicity stated that they saw nothing in the Disability Discrimination Act that prevented pre-employment questioning and sweep up questions in health questionnaires. In this respect the bill brings some welcome clarity, even if what the bill is actually saying may not in itself be welcomed by employers."

The ability for same sex couples to marry in church - even though churches will not be forced to hold ceremonies if they do not want to - appears to run contrary to the recent case of Ladele v Islington Borough Council and is unlikely to resolve the matter for good, Sherborne added.

 (Source: People Managment)