Ministerial and other Maternity Allowances Bill

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 22nd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, because that was a brilliant speech. I have found the speeches today humbling, articulate and wonderful, and noble Lords will know that I do not often start my speeches in this manner. I think we have captured that this is not just a matter of words. There is something else going on and I hope that message comes through.

When I was a teenager, my working mother excitedly told me about the Employment Protection Act 1975, which introduced the first maternity leave legislation. She was thrilled that this would give me and my two sisters choices about work and change everything for future generations of women. In school, my radical English teacher enthusiastically showed me trade union and campaigning leaflets. She proclaimed that maternity leave was a key step for women’s equal employment rights. Her enthusiasm for political change was infectious and I have to confess that I caught the bug. We have to remember that, until then, every woman knew she could get sacked for getting pregnant and faced open discrimination, often related to maternity. I suspect that my mother and teacher would be delighted to know that things have improved so much for women that we can now focus on ensuring that women at the top of government will not be expected to resign because of pregnancy and will have six months’ leave on full pay.

As other noble Lords have noted, the Bill is rather narrowly focused on the women in Westminster. I rather wish that Parliament would show such speed and a sense of urgency in tackling the ludicrously low statutory maternity pay and weak employment protections for ordinary working women on maternity leave. Despite this, I see the Bill as a step forward for women’s rights.

But wait—as we have heard from so many today in the brilliant speeches, can we or the Government claim that it is a gain for women’s rights when the words “women”, “she” or “her” do not appear even once in the Bill? We are assured that this is merely a technical drafting matter. If so, can the Minister organise an urgent review of official drafting guidance so that we can explain that gender-neutral language is not appropriate for sex-specific issues?

The noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, said that he did not see a problem with the language used. He implied that it was a bit like saying “chairperson”, but giving birth is not like chairing a meeting. Erasing women from public discourse on maternity is not ahead of the curve; it is regressive and demeaning. It is not people who get pregnant; it is women. It is women who give birth. It is women who benefit from maternity leave and it is women’s rights at work that we want to protect. If we erase the word “women”, the danger is that we erase the struggle for women’s rights that got us here.

I stress that, of course, not all women want to be mothers. Not all women can be mothers or are even good mothers. In my opinion, child rearing is well and truly not a mother’s natural job, but the words “woman” and “mother” have specific meaning. It horrifies me that it has become so contentious to say so. I have been gratified in this debate by how supportive people have been of the amendment. If anything shows that this House is far removed from the rest of society, it is that most of us would be cancelled if we said these things anywhere else but in this House. There is a toxic, nasty thrust to political life today. I would like to acknowledge the courage of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, and others for speaking out. This is because, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, explained, people here will be labelled TERFs and transphobes and will go on hate lists for speaking out. That is the reality.

I say to the Government, please do not be either naive or disingenuous. These language rows are not technical. As many noble Lords have articulated so passionately, we have to consider the political context. The day after the debate on the Bill in the other place, I watched a male Labour MP on BBC “Politics Live” repeatedly refuse to say whether maternity law should refer to the pregnant “person” or “woman”. Why was it so hard for him to say that? I am not making a party-political point; we see this across the political spectrum.

These new language codes and norms are mandating us to adopt doublespeak. Why do I need to describe myself as “cis woman”? I am a woman; that is it—enough. I am not a uterus holder, nor a person with a vagina nor a chestfeeder. These are linguistic abominations, but they are not harmless. Ultimately, these body part descriptions demean women and are a linguistic assault on the notion that biological sex exists at all. There are consequences of this. For example, in medical challenges specific to biological females, how can healthcare workers discuss the risks of mastitis infection if they have to replace “breast” with “chest”?

We can see how language is being weaponised in other areas deemed technical. You cannot get more technical than the census. As the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, noted, there is now a huge furore about the politicised wording of the questions. The census is a hugely important inquiry to gather factual data and accurate statistics. Dr Debbie Hayton, a transgender woman, teacher and trade union officer, rightly points out that

“the gender-identity lobby has been working hard to obfuscate the issue by mangling sex with gender identity”.

This place is not a students’ union. On too many campuses, mangling and obfuscating language and linguistic policing are often used to undermine academic freedom and to smear and damage the reputation of feminist academics. Noble Lords should check out the new website, GC Academia Network, to read some horrifying tales. In some ways, we might expect this to go on in a students’ union, but this Parliament should not be like student politics or, much worse, even consider removing the word “woman” from this maternity Bill. We in this House—and even more so in the other place—are answerable to millions of women, men and transgender people—that is, transgender people as distinct from transactivist lobbyists. Those millions would expect, in plain language, that legislation expanding maternity leave would benefit women’s equality. I suspect that those millions of citizens would be horrified to think that any part of our legislative body was in thrall to the small—if loud—lobbying organisations which, make no mistake, are using language as a battering ram to march through the institutions and to eradicate the crucial distinction between biological sex and subjectively-defined gender identity, and which bully and intimidate anyone who refuses to repeat the mandated correct terminology.

I urge the Minister not to let the absence of one key word betray the embryonic gains of the 1975 maternity leave legislation and the hopes of my mother, my teacher and my teenage self. It would mean something for women’s freedom. Do not betray us now.