My Lords, this Bill will now pass unamended and I welcome that. But we recognise that our debate has touched on wider issues and that we are likely to return to them, in spite of our agreement on the government concession, on other Bills.
When I first joined this House a quarter of a century ago, it was dominated by men, most of them hereditary Peers. A Conservative woman Peer told me the hereditary Peers in her group treated the women Peers as if they were “day boys”. Having been at a boarding school myself, I knew exactly what this meant. In my first Session, I objected to some sections of that year’s defence review, which included women in the section on “equalities”, but gays in the section on “disciplinary problems”. When I dared to refer to great commanders of the past whose sexuality might have been called into question if aggressive efforts had been made to investigate them, I was attacked from both the Labour and the Conservative Benches and thought it wise to apologise before the debate wound up. Happily, this House and the country as a whole have moved on a great deal since then. We have all become more inclusive and openly diverse. None of us, I hope, wishes to return to the attitudes or the language of that earlier generation.
It is not only in Britain where we have moved towards gender-neutral language in political discourse. In Germany and France, which the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, mentioned, similar changes have been debated and carried into effect. There have been similar protests over attempts at political correctness—although I am not aware that people in France or Germany have taken over the term “woke” from its American origins. The general direction of change has been towards gender neutrality in language, where possible, to remove the implicit biases against women and LGBT people that were often embedded in language.
We all appreciate that this is a sensitive area where passions can easily be aroused. The last thing we want in this country is to slip towards the aggressive culture wars that have been stoked up in the United States, with partisans of opposing viewpoints more interested in the battle itself than in finding common ground, with well-funded organisations feeding the fire. We have all seen American battles spill over into British debate, from the student rebellions and protests that the Vietnam war provoked, to those over Black Lives Matter and opposing interpretations of each country’s history, glorious or inglorious. I hope all of us wish to resist sliding down the road that has led to such bitter divisions in American society, stoked by rival lobbies and highly partisan media. I hope we are all committed to an inclusive society and inclusive language. I also hope we are united in wanting to avoid moves to secure equality for women and moves to provide equal rights to LGBT people being pitched against each other.
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As a former university teacher, I am also concerned about the possibility of freedom of speech in British universities becoming another battleground between
cultural radicals and cultural conservatives. I am not persuaded by any evidence I have seen so far from Policy Exchange or elsewhere that there is any real threat to freedom of speech in our universities—any more than there was at the first lecture I gave nearly 55 years ago, when I found myself faced with a student demonstration. I am aware there is guerrilla warfare under way in some American liberal arts colleges—but that is over there, and we have no need to imitate it here.
Last week, a well-known professor published an article in the Daily Mail saying he was part of a secretive and persecuted minority in British universities. He lacks self-irony; secretive and persecuted minorities rarely get published in the Daily Mail. Matters of freedom of speech, women’s rights, gender-sensitive language or inclusiveness for lesbian and gay communities can easily be exploited by populists and hard-line lobbies. Those of us who care about an open society, and tolerant and democratic debate, will want to unite in resisting their attempts to do so. I note that the very concept of an open society is now under attack—in the United States, Hungary, Poland and elsewhere. We must all defend it in Britain.
The 2007 legislative guidance was a move in the right direction. I see no reason to change that guidance. I look to the Minister to continue to defend these open and democratic principles. I assure him that in doing so he will have strong support from the Liberal Democrat Benches, and sharp criticism if he should falter.