My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. She is of course right: minorities must always be carefully guarded, as long as they behave legally, but majorities have their rights too. It is important that that is recognised. We need to live in a more mutually tolerant and respectful society.
I am very glad not to be going—metaphorically—into the Division Lobby tonight. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord True and his ministerial colleagues for recognising the overwhelming view expressed in the debate at Second Reading on Monday evening. Those speeches were made not because the people making them were intolerant; rather, because all of us were concerned about the role of women in society and the way in which some people have sought to marginalise it. It seemed, to me and to others, quite absurd that a Bill with “maternity” in its title contained not a single reference to “woman” or “mother”.
I rather share the views of my noble friend Lady Noakes, who set us off on a very good path on Monday night with her regret Motion, which she did not press to a Division. If we were to put one word in, my marginal preference would be for “woman”, but there is no more wonderful word in the language than “mother”. I am happy not to join the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, in pressing his amendment, to which I am a signatory, but rather to accept with due gratitude the Government’s recognition and incorporate the Winston-Lucas amendments throughout the Bill—because that is what it amounts to.
The problem with a Division is that it would have sent out unfortunate signals, most of all signals that the Government were not prepared to recognise the obvious. They have now done so; for that, many thanks. I am one of that group of colleagues who has met my noble friend Lord True on two or three occasions this week. We have been grateful to have sometimes robust discussions with him. He has clearly listened and talked to his ministerial colleagues. For me, the most powerful lesson of this week is that it is a wonderful illustration of how your Lordships’ House can reach across parties. We must recognise that we were a group made up of Members from political parties, the non-aligned and the Cross Benches, who had a common aim and a common purpose: to entrench toleration in this particular legislation. Not a single one of us opposed the Bill itself. There were, of course, those who criticised the Bill on Monday for not going far enough or being inclusive enough; those were valued comments and doubtless we shall come to them again.
However, the thing that united all but two of the speakers on Monday was the problem of language. We are possessed of a wonderful language in this country. To anaesthetise it in the way originally suggested in the Bill was not really good. By the way, I noticed in the Times this morning that our colleagues in France are also having problems with inclusive language and all the rest of it, so this problem is not limited to our country or our time. We do not have an academy to protect our language in the way the French do, of course, but it is a rich and marvellous language. Quite soon, we will commemorate the anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth, which will give us another chance to recognise how rich, varied and wonderful our language is.
There is no more powerful word in the language than “mother”. The fact that it will now be in the Bill gives me great pleasure. I have not been deluged by letters—partly because I am very new to email—but I have had a number of them, some of which were heart- rending, from women who felt that they were being marginalised and not recognised. They rejoiced in the fact that they had, as one of them put it to me, some champions in the House of Lords.
This is not the end of the matter—it is not even the beginning of the end—but, as the greatest of Englishmen in the last century, Churchill, said, this is the end of the beginning. It is important that we review how language is used in legislation. It is important that we look at all the kindred aspects of toleration and how women can be properly recognised, having fought so hard for freedom. It is important that that can now be entrenched and not put aside or marginalised. This has
been a good illustration of how colleagues can work together with a common purpose and a common aim. I am glad that we have, to some degree, realised that today.