GPs who refuse to treat gays or lesbians, or councils who refuse to provide “wedding” ceremonies for civil partnership registrations, will also be breaking the law under the new regulations. The Government will accept today an amendment to its Equality Bill that will outlaw discrimination on ground of sexual orientation in providing goods and services or organising public functions.

The amendment, which will be accepted during the Bill’s Third Reading in the Lords today, will also mark the end of gay or lesbian-only clubs because bars and nightclubs will no longer be able to turn away straight people. The amendment, tabled by Lord Alli, a Labour peer, comes after several complaints that gay couples have been turned away from bed and breakfast places, hotels and restaurants.

The gay rights group Stonewall also claims that lesbians are regularly refused cervical smears and that some GPs refuse to treat gay men. The Government has come under increasing pressure from gay figures such as the comedian Julian Clary and the actor Sir Ian McKellen to change laws that allow hoteliers to refuse a room on the basis of sexuality.

Originally the Equality Bill, which will go before the Commons next month, was to make it illegal for religious groups to be turned away by the goods or service sector. But more than 100 MPs signed an early day motion calling for the measures to be extended to sexuality and there were signs that the Government could be defeated on the Bill.

Many Labour peers had been planning to be absent from the vote because they did not want to back measures that appeared homophobic. The Government’s decision to agree to the amendment came after pressure from Alan Johnson, the Trade and Industry Secretary, who has been arguing for the laws to be widened. He was said to be outraged that some councils were refusing to allow gay couples to hold wedding ceremonies when they registered for civil partnerships, which become law next month.

Ben Summerskill, the chairman of Stonewall, said: “Gay couples were just being allowed in to sign the register but councils have been refusing to provide any ceremony to go with it. We are delighted that the Government appears to be yielding to a strong cross-party feeling that these protections are urgently needed. They will make a real difference to the everyday lives of hundreds of thousands of gay people.”

The change was prompted by a row last year when Tom Forrest, a guesthouse owner in Wester Ross, told a gay couple from London that they could not stay in a double room because their relationship was “unnatural”. He was blacklisted by the Visit Scotland tourist authority, which said that his comments were offensive.

• Britain’s most senior woman judge has welcomed the Government’s legislation to allow civil partnerships, through which homosexual couples can formalise their relationship. Baroness Hale, the only woman law lord, said: “If people want both the privileges and the responsibilities of marriage, I do not see why we should deny it to them.”

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