My Lords, in supporting the Bill I join in with the well-deserved tributes made to the noble Baroness. The one jarring note during the debate has been the suggestion that the Bill is an attempt to demonise Islam. If it was, of course, it would be a disgraceful Bill—but it is not. The Bill is an attempt to demonise discrimination, particularly against women, and falls within a virtuous circle in which we should all wish to stand.
The isolation of women from the law is not a new phenomenon. However, the inevitable consequence of such isolation is discrimination against women. Some of that discrimination is casual and negligent, but bad enough for that. However, some of the discrimination is misogynistic, manipulative and, most of all, obsolete. We should take action to drive that kind of discrimination out of our law. The Minister would be right should he say that this proposal was superfluous. Nevertheless, I do not agree because it would emphasise the need for such discrimination to be driven out of our law. The awareness and availability of the law will be heightened by the passing of this Bill.
I said earlier that isolation of women from the law is nothing new. Indeed, as I was thinking about this Bill, I was driven to remember another Friday afternoon, albeit in 1975, when a woman from the beautiful Welsh town of Bala was brought to my chambers in Chester. She was a middle-aged woman with children. She told me when she arrived that she had never been to England before.