Legislation: Gender-neutral Language

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Thursday 12th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to place on record my thanks to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scott of Foscote, for putting down this Question for debate today. Like other noble Lords who have spoken, I am looking forward to the response of the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner of Kimble.

As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scott of Foscote, told the House, the drafting of primary legislation has for many years relied on Section 6 of the Interpretation Act 1978, under which words referring to the masculine gender include the feminine. Section 23(1) of the 1978 Act made it clear that Section 6 was applicable not only to Bills and Acts but to statutory instruments.

That changed on 8 March 2007, when my right honourable friend Mr Jack Straw, who was then the Leader of the House of Commons, issued a Written Ministerial Statement that was also issued as a Written Ministerial Statement in this House by my noble friend Lady Amos.

Along with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scott of Foscote, English is the only language that I understand and speak, which is much to my regret as we are living in a global world where communication is key. Although I fear that I may not be as eloquent in my delivery as many noble Lords in this House, my accent is a mix of south London with Irish influences and a tinge of the east Midlands.

In preparation for this debate, I asked myself: what is the English language? As noble Lords will be aware, English is a Germanic language and is one of the most widely used languages in the world. It is spoken as the first language by majority populations in the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and a number of Caribbean nations. It is often widely chosen to be learnt as a second language, and is one of the official languages of the European Union and the United Nations. In terms of numbers of people speaking English as a first language, it comes third in the world behind Mandarin Chinese and Spanish. However, when combining native and non-native speakers, it is definitely the second most commonly spoken language in the world, if not the most commonly spoken. It is the required language of communication in seafaring, aviation and many other fields.

However, the English spoken by the early Germanic settlers from what is today the Netherlands, north-west Germany and Denmark is different and has evolved over the years into the language that we have today. Our language has developed with influences from Old Norse. A number of English words drew their construction from their roots in Latin, as Latin was the lingua franca of the Christian church and European intellectual life.

The Norman conquest of England in the 11th century gave rise to heavy borrowings from Norman French. All noble Lords will be aware of the use of Norman French in Parliament to signify some of the formalities of Bills passing. Many French words or phrases have crept into the English language, such as mirage, genre, coup d’état and rendezvous. The point is that the English we all speak today is a beautiful language that has a wonderful, rich literature for us all to enjoy, but it has evolved over time. That evolution is a consequence of our development as a nation and as a people, of our history and the influences that have shaped us and our history. It is not a stand-alone, stand-still language. It is growing, evolving, developing and shaping us into who we are today. That is how it should be.

I very much support the initiative undertaken by my right honourable friend Mr Jack Straw in 2007. I read with real interest the paper by Mr Christopher Williams in the Statute Law Review, “The End of the ‘Masculine Rule’?”. It is clear from the paper that we are not the first Parliament or institution in the world to adopt gender-neutral drafting. We follow in the footsteps of both Australia and New Zealand, which were probably the first English-speaking countries to embrace the principle of gender-neutral drafting.

Mr Williams’s excellent paper informs us that as far back as 1983, the Parliamentary Counsel’s Office of New South Wales adopted the policy, and on a national level in Australia it was adopted in 1988. Similar reforms happened in New Zealand in 1985. In Canada the policy was adopted in 1991-92, and with the election of President Mandela and the ANC Government, gender-neutral drafting was adopted in South Africa. Looking at international organisations, the United Nations adopted gender-neutral drafting during the latter half of the 1980s. The International Labour Organisation began drafting its conventions in a gender-neutral way at around the same time. The European Union began the switch in 1998, though you can find examples there where the masculine rule still applies.

My noble friend Lady Corston, when she was the Member for Bristol East in the other place, raised the issue in the Commons on 7 May 1995. It was reported in the Guardian on 9 March 2007 that my friend in the other place, Meg Munn MP, said:

“It may seem a small thing in one sense, but language is important. We have a society in which we believe men and women are equal, so why shouldn’t the law refer to us equally? Many other English-speaking countries do so already”.

I very much agree with the comments of my friend in the other place. You could say that we have not been quick off the starting blocks here. We took more of a long-term view, but correctly made the change in 2007.

I very much hope that the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner of Kimble, will tell the House when he responds to the debate that, moving forward, the changes announced by Mr Jack Straw are here to stay. In saying that, I accept fully that we are not going to go back and start rewriting laws just to change the language, but that, in a sensible and proportionate way as we move forward, gender-neutral drafting will become the norm. I also accept fully that we have to ensure that the legislation we pass does what it says on the tin and that there must not be any inconsistencies. We should work to achieve the maximum clarity in the laws we pass in Parliament.

As I see it, when we have a Bill making a minor change or textual amendment to an existing Act, it would not be sensible to go through and make a whole load of gender-neutral changes to the original Act. But, where you introduce a whole new Bill to put substantial new laws onto the statue book, you should seek to make sure that it is gender-neutral. I do not agree with the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scott, about the matter of principle, but I agree with him that the legislation we pass has to be clear. He highlighted skilfully to the House some of the issues and problems that we have with the drafting of statutory instruments. I am sure that the Minister will look seriously at them, when he takes this away afterwards because they have serious implications for the Government.

I am also of the opinion that our language evolves with us and reflects on us. As it illustrates who we are, it must make sense and not be difficult to understand. Nowhere is that more important than in the laws we pass. Again, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scott, for his interesting debate today. I thank all noble Lords who spoke and look forward to the response of the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner of Kimble.