HL Deb 02 July 1985 vol 465 cc1134-48

8.36 p.m.

Baroness Masham of Ilton

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.

I should like to thank the noble Lord the Minister and all in your Lordships' House who have supported this Bill and helped it on its way through your Lordships' House. It has been difficult for some people to understand the aspects of the mental health issues. Medically, some individual females may be born physically normal but in comparison with other girls they may seem different by having parts of their anatomy which seem wrong, and, due to this, unless corrected, they may become seriously depressed, thus interfering with their well-being.

In British law this must be made clear. I should like to pay tribute to the groups and individuals involved in trying to tackle the detrimental practice of female circumcision by abolishing it. The BBC documentary film brought this issue to the fore, illustrating the real horror of what goes on when girls and young women are mutilated in such a way. This debases women and brings a serious risk to their health. Such a custom can be compared to the practice of burning widows, as has been said by the noble Baroness, Lady Jeger.

Having read a recent issue of Sister Links sent to me by Mrs. Stella Efua Graham, a campaigner for the Foundation of Women's Health, Research and Development, I feel there is no doubt that female circumcision can be a ritual. If any noble Lord disagrees, perhaps he will read the article, "Building bridges across cultures". It is clear that female circumcision violates medical ethics and I agree with other campaigners that medical staff should be forbidden to carry out such operations. This Bill makes it clear that no one should undertake such operations.

I hope that this Bill, when enacted, will totally eradicate the practice in Britain and I also hope that it will help to stimulate other countries who admire British law to take a stronger line in prohibiting the practice. I hope that all who can will help promote a wider health education programme for all who need it, so that this barbaric custom is wiped away and the ignorant are enlightened so that they see the folly and the cruelty which result from female circumcision.

I hope that our discussions throughout the passage of this Bill in your Lordships' House will have encouraged the Government to be generous in their grants for education. This legislation needs an educational programme to speed up the freedom for females who might in future suffer from the indignity, pain and danger of being circumcised. My Lords, I beg to move.

Moved, That the Bill be now read a third time.—(Baroness Masham of Mon.)

Lord Hatch of Lusby

My Lords, I have every sympathy with the noble Baroness who has sponsored this Bill and who has spoken in moving the Third Reading. I am sad that she has, as it were, changed sides since the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, was before this House last year. I recognise her sincerity in doing so and I know that her main purpose in sponsoring this Bill in this House has involved really a choice of options, perhaps a choice of evils, and that she considered that it was more important to get any Bill outlawing female circumcision on the statute book rather than to get a Bill which could not be considered to have any overtones of racial discrimination. I think she is wrong and I think she has been deluded by the Government, who have in fact used a form of blackmail in getting the Bill pushed through this House—

Lord Kennet

My Lords, she is being deluded at this moment.

Lord Hatch of Lusby

Yes, my Lords, by the Government. I believe, as I say, that, although sincere, she has been deluded by the Government by a process of blackmail in which the Government have said, quite insincerely and with a good deal of misleading, that they wanted the Bill on the statute book at all costs. They did not. The Government could have had this Bill on the statute book 12 months ago, outlawing female circumcision. The Government would only accept a Bill which was drafted in the form they desired and they would only accept a Bill which was drafted in the form which this House rejected when the Government put down their amendment and were defeated on it last year. I am referring to the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Kennet.

I believe too that the noble Baroness has been misled in the quotation that she has given this evening, because the same lady she quoted is also, I think, the chairman—if not, certainly an officer—of the London Black Women's Action Project, which declared this Bill to be discriminatory on racial grounds.

I sympathise with the noble Baroness and I again assure her, for what must be the eighth or ninth time, that there is nobody in this House who does not want to outlaw female circumcision for this country. However, it seems to me that because of the pressure of the Government the Bill of the noble Baroness is going to damage the prospects of that transition which we all want to see from the acceptance of female circumcision among certain small ethnic minorities in this country to a condition in which those same ethnic minorities reject female circumcision. I believe that this Bill is going to make the task of those who are trying to lead their own people away from the cruel practice of female circumcision very much more difficult; and they have said so themselves.

While sympathising with the motives of the noble Baroness, I cannot say I have any sympathy whatever for the actions of the Government in this matter. In the first place, if the Government really wanted to outlaw female circumcision from this country, why did they not introduce a Bill themselves? They have had six years to do so and they have not made a single move. All they have done is to kill last year's Bill, introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Kennet. To say that they are determined to outlaw female circumcision is just hypocritical.

What is more, when the Government heard from their own statutory body—set up in order to make sure that racial discrimination is not practised in any part of the law in this country—that it considered this Bill to be discriminatory, why did the Government take no action either to discuss it with the commission or to amend the Bill so that the discriminatory clause was changed? They have taken no action. All they have done is to obstruct those of us (and particularly the noble Lord, Lord Kennet), who have tried to improve the Bill by removing the discriminatory clause.

8.45 p.m.

Let me quote from what the Commission for Racial Equality has said, so that it is on the record. On 6th February 1985 the commission wrote: The 1985 version of the Bill unfortunately uses a form of words in clause 2(2) which the Commission has already described as likely to be discriminatory in effect and undesirable in principle. Those words are: 'In determining for the purposes of this section whether an operation is necessary for the mental health of a person, no account shall be taken of the effect on that person of any belief on the part of that or any other person that the operation is required as a matter of custom or ritual'".

The commission goes on to say this: The reason for concern is as follows: a doctor, when assessing mental health as justifying the performance of an otherwise prohibited operation, will normally base his judgment on the patient's state of mind as he finds it. To suggest that some reasons for that state of mind may be acceptable and others, broadly confined to those which might affect persons of African origin or descent, are not, is in the Commission's view discriminatory and therefore to be avoided".

I have asked and asked whether the Government have discussed this clause of the Bill with their own Commission for Racial Equality. I have yet to receive an answer. And what is more, the commission itself is exposing the whole of the case which we have made, not against the Bill or the intention of the Bill but against what is certain to be the practice of the Bill. And again I return to the issue of those brave men and women—because although they are mainly women there are also some men—among the ethnic communities who are trying to lead their people away from the practice of female circumcision. They have said—and they were quoted at Committee stage and Report stage—that this clause of the Bill will make their task of education so much more difficult.

Therefore I want to ask the noble Baroness, who I assume is going to speak for the Government, two questions. The first is: have the Government yet, even at this late stage, consulted with the Commission for Racial Equality? If so, what is the Government's answer to the expert opinion the commission has given? Secondly, have the Government yet consulted, as they have been asked to do on three occasions during the passage of this Bill, with the London Black Women's Action Project? We are all depending on the leaders of that body to do the educational work which we all agree is necessary as an accompaniment to this Bill.

Have they, in fact, taken any cognisance of the dangers to which some of us have drawn their attention: that the intentions of this Bill can be obstructed by the inclusion of this clause, which makes that educational process so much more difficult and which will, as we know it already has done, provide a focus of argument on racial discrimination rather than what I know the noble Baroness who has moved the Third Reading wishes; namely, a focus of education leading these people away, as she said, from acceptance of the practice of female circumcision? This can be, and I believe is, a fatal flaw in the Bill. The Government have so far during the various stages of this Bill given me no answer to either of these questions. This is the last chance which we have to get the Government's answer, and I hope that we shall get one tonight. So far the Government spokesmen and spokeswomen appear to have been insensitive and supercilious whenever this issue has been raised.

Finally I return to the fact that the Bill could have been improved. As the letter which I have quoted from the Commission for Racial Equality points out, the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, was in consultation with the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. He put foward an accepted alternative phrasing for this clause, accepted by the obstetricians and gynaecologists. The phrase, I believe—and he will correct me if I am wrong—is that no operation should be performed which is likely to be detrimental to the physical health of the patient. If that does not protect the present form of acceptable operations, then what does? This would have done away with the whole of the racial smear of using the phrase "ritual and custom". I believe that I am the only Member of either House to have lived in the middle of a society where female circumcision is practised, and has been practised regularly, as a part of the culture of that society. I therefore know personally something of the mental and emotional tensions which it raises. I do not wish those mental and emotional tensions to be exacerbated by the smear that this Parliament is passing a Bill which discriminates on grounds of race among the citizens of this country.

I hope that the noble Baroness who is to reply will give us some kind of satisfaction even at this late stage, on Third Reading. Whether or not she does, I can assure her and the Government that we shall return to this issue after the Bill is passed. We shall want monitoring to take place; and we shall want to know what is happening to those on whom the Bill depends—those women who are trying desperately now to lead their own people away from this ancient practice and who say themselves that Clause 2(2) in the Bill will make their task so much more difficult.

Lord McNair

My Lords, I do not intend to reply to the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby. We have discussed his speech at all the stages of this Bill. I should like to extend my congratulations to the honourable Lady in another place, Mrs. Roe. I should like to pay a very warm tribute to the noble Baroness—and perhaps I may bend the conventions of the House and say the noble and gallant Baroness—Lady Masham of Eton, who has put a tremendous amount of time and work into this Bill. Without detracting in any way from my admiration of those two ladies, I think we should not forget the credit which is due to my noble friend Lord Kennet. It was he who first alerted Parliament to this problem. It is ironic, and to me very distressing, that he is not wholly happy with the Bill which is now passing into law. I hope that when the dust has settled, and when a little time has passed, he will be able to feel the satisfaction which I think he ought to feel that his initiative has finally borne fruit.

There will be more hope of his coming to that happy condition if the Bill works in practice. This brings me naturally to the second of my three points. We must demand that the department monitor the action of this Bill when it is an Act. One is not allowed to put down Starred Questions more than a certain distance ahead, but it would not be a bad idea for somebody to note in their diary to put one down in, say, two years' time. Along with monitoring, as the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, says—and here I agree with him—must go counselling; and that must not fail for lack of funds. The people affected by the Bill must be helped both to understand and to implement it.

My third and last point is procedural. I should like fully to support the protest made by the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, at the Report stage concerning the manner of the voting on what was then Amendment No. 1. Your Lordships may remember that we had had a discussion and a debate, and the maddening thing for me is that I think we had won the argument. By "we" I mean the people on whose side I found myself in that debate. I think we had in fact won the argument. I do not expect the noble Lords, Lord Hatch and Lord Kennet, to agree with that.

The matter was then put to the vote and the bells rang, and, just like some Pavlovian experiment there trooped into the Chamber, as it were, a conditioned pack of about 100 undoubtedly noble Lords who, up to that moment, had been innocently consuming their dinner with their minds on other things. A few of my colleagues asked, "How do I vote?" I said, "If you have not listened to the argument the best thing you can do is not to vote at all." But no such advice was given to people who came in by the other door. Although this massive overkill vote came down on the side on which I had been arguing, I really felt rather sick. At this point I have to admit that there was a practical difficulty. I am not sure whether in the Chamber we had a quorum for a Division. I do not know the answer to this dilemma, but, surely, on a totally non-party Private Member's Bill there must be a better way of doing things.

I conclude, therefore, by asking the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, whether perhaps she would bring this matter to the attention of her noble friend the Leader of the House, because I think this is a question which the Procedure Committee might find time to consider.

9 p.m.

Lord Rea

My Lords, like every noble Lord or noble Baroness who has spoken at any stage of the Bill, I most strongly support the principle of forbidding this practice which is manifestly cruel and leads to long- lasting psychological and physical damage to the health of millions of women. However, I must add my voice to that of the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, in regretting most strongly that the Government have stuck so rigidly to their use of the words "custom" and "ritual" which the Commission for Racial Equality has found objectionable and which diminishes this Bill in the eyes of some of the very people that it is designed to help. I still do not think that it would have been impossible to devise a form of words which would have satisfied all parties.

As the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, has said, the Commission for Racial Equality is there to advise the Government. If the Government had not been so hidebound and so insistent on having their form of words incorporated in the Bill as they seem to have been, and if they had showed some greater sensitivity, they might, as the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, has suggested, have arranged for their legal advisers and drafting experts to meet and discuss the issue with the Commission for Racial Equality. I still remain puzzled as to why this meeting never took place. It was not due to any objections on the part of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. With this proviso, and it is not a small one, I support the main purposes of the Bill and I wish it well.

Lady Kinloss

My Lords, I should like to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, on having steered the Bill through the House with such care and hard work. The noble Lord, Lord Hatch, says that he thinks he is the only one in the House who has lived among people who practise this. He is wrong; I and my husband lived for many years among them. One of my reasons for wanting the Bill to become law is that when we lived there one of my African women friends, a nurse, was very distressed that when she was at work she had to leave her two small children—one a daughter—with her mother. She was terrified that her mother would have her small daughter circumcised. The mother very much did not want that to happen because she had such problems herself. She brought up the subject; I did not. I should also say that the African women speak only to women about these matters unless they have to go to a doctor. The other reason is that when the Bill becomes law, I hope that it will save children a great deal of pain, suffering and infections—infections which can be with them all their lives.

Baroness Jeger

My Lords, though I speak from the Front Bench I must make it clear to the House that I speak in a personal capacity. I welcome this Bill and I wish it well. I hope that it will be implemented at the earliest possible moment. I am particularly interested that this Bill is passing through your Lordships' House at the end of the United Nations Decade for Women. I think that it will go out from this House that we have made one tangible contribution to the emancipation of women during this decade which has not produced all the results that we would wish.

I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, who has brought this problem to the attention of your Lordships on several occasions. He deserves a great deal of credit for the thought and consideration that has been given to this legislation. We appreciate the work of the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, and the experience which the noble Lady, Lady Kinloss, has brought from her own knowledge of this situation.

As I remember it, the interest in this issue began when there was evidence in the Observer and the Sunday Times and a film on television about the growing prevalence of female circumcision in this country. Many people here had thought that it was something that happened in distant lands and in distant cultures. But we were confronted with evidence that this was happening in this country. I must say that none of the evidence which was brought forward in the press and on television was refuted by those who were accused of involving people in this ritual. In trying to make this bill practical, we have faced some difficulty in making clear the difference between the act of wilful mutilation and legitimate medical operations. I do not know how we assess this. I am not sure that we have it totally right; but we have tried to get it right. The most important point that I hope will come out of the Bill is the necessity for health education in this country among our ethnic minorities who come from cultures where this practice is endemic.

I hope that your Lordships will forgive me if I read out a short passage, because I do want to get this correctly on the record, from the proceedings of Standing Committee C of another place for 3rd April. The junior Minister said: Under the Section 64 grants procedure we are prepared to accept applications from any organisations for funding to cover such activities. There is a wide range of volunteer organisations which help in this context. To the best of my knowledge—I am not clear about this but I do not see wiser and clearer heads shaking in disagreement—we have not had applications for financial help from women's groups or aid groups of this type. But if we receive such applications and they are well founded and have serious intent and a serious plan behind them, I assure the honourable Member for Barking that my department will consider as sympathetically as possible funding for educational help of that nature". I quote that because I very much hope that the Minister will be able to confirm this evening that that is still the Government policy as it is very important in trying to put into practice the legislation we are proposing to pass tonight.

I should like to ask the Minister and the noble Baroness who is responsible for the Bill one or two questions. I am worried, as are some of my noble friends, about how this legislation will be policed. How are we going to find out whether it is being respected? I have looked at the Department of Health and Social Security Office of Population Censuses and Surveys where I find there are records of circumcision operations. I very much hope that the Minister will be able to tell us whether they will follow up these statistics. If there is suddenly an enormous increase in the number of operations—particularly under Clause 2(2)—then we ought to worry about whether we have managed to get this Bill right.

With those reservations, and with the reservation I share with some of my noble friends concerning the semantics of Clause 2(2), I wish this Bill well. I wish that we had been able to find a form of words that everybody could have been happy about. However, at this stage in the Bill the best that we can all achieve is to agree that it shall now pass and wish it well, but with the proviso that the Government will monitor what happens as a result of this Bill and report on that aspect to the House.

Tonight, we are making a statement not only for this country and for what is happening in the United Kingdom. As a former representative on the Status of Women Commission to the United Nations, I know that there are brave men and women all over the world who are looking to us to support them in the efforts that they are making to stamp out this terrible practice in their own countries. They want to be absolutely sure that we will not allow such a practice in our country. It is in that spirit that I hope this Bill will now pass.

9.9 p.m.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Baroness Trumpington)

My Lords, I join with other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, on the way in which she has steered this Bill through your Lordships' House. Is this really "a process of blackmail", to quote the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby? Rubbish! Of course the Government—and I speak as a member of that Government—want this Bill to go through. But we want a Bill that contains effective legislation that will place beyond all doubt that female circumcision is illegal in this country.

In giving this Bill a Third Reading today we are meeting a strongly-expressed public desire from all parts of the community. The Bill has the support of the medical profession and of many national and international women's groups, several of them within the African communities in this country.

Incidentally, to correct the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, Mrs. Graham has no present links with the London Black Women's Health Action Project. Forward, the organisation of which Mrs. Graham is director, is a warm supporter of this Bill. In a letter dated 27th June, Mrs. Graham stated: This is to inform you that we have met with officials of the DHSS and have discussed in more detail Forward's proposal on a campaign for the eradication of sexual mutilation in the United Kingdom. I shall be attending"— and this is interesting on a wider basis— the Women's Decade Conference in Nairobi in July, where there will be a major workshop on the sexual mutilation of African girls. I hope to report to the Inter-Africa Committee on Detrimental Traditional Practices, who are organising the workshop, on the development of the campaign in the United Kingdom. As you know, at the last workshop, which was held in the Sudan in October 1984, they specifically sent letters of appeal to African Governments as well as to Her Majesty's Government to take effective measures to prevent the mutilation of healthy girls. At the Report stage of the Bill, Lord Kennet said that the London Black Women's Health Action Project requested a delay in legislation, to allow time for education in communities directly affected by the Bill. I should like to suggest that a delay of this kind, coupled with the intense awareness by parents of the Government's intending legislation, would force mothers to get their girls circumcised before the Bill became an Act of Parliament. This happened in Egypt and led to the death of many girls". The letter is signed, "Stella Efua Graham".

I have no intention of replying to all the various remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Hatch; we have walked that dreary path so many times. If the noble Lord really is in favour of the objects of this Bill, why can he not rejoice that his work, the work of the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, and indeed the work of us all, is so near to fruition?

The noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby, asked two questions. He asked, first, whether the Government have consulted the Commission for Racial Equality. We have carefully considered their views—as have, I understand, the sponsors of the Bill. We believe, as we have made clear at length in debate and in correspondence, that the commission's fears are utterly misplaced. We have informed them of that. We have found no other way than the Bill as drafted of securing effective legislation. Nor has the Commission made any positive response.

The noble Lord's second question concerned the London Black Women's Health Action Project. The noble Lord is quite mistaken if he believes that that organisation is the only organisation, or even the major organisation, concerned. Forward, which has been quoted at earlier stages of the Bill, has worked on this matter for several years, and warmly supports the Bill. The criticisms by the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, can only be described as sour, carping and unconstructive. I think they will be seen as such on all sides of your Lordships' House.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jeger, referred to education, and I entirely agree with her. That has been a constant thread in all the discussions on the Bill; that legislation of itself is not sufficient to eradicate the practice of female circumcision. It has been a custom in some communities for many hundreds of years. What is necessary is a programme of counselling and education, and that is why I am pleased that officials in the department have been discussing with various voluntary organisations applications for assistance with such a necessary programme.

We hope also that other organisations who have been vocal in their support for legislation will now be able to turn their hands and support towards other aspects of the campaign to eradicate this repugnant practice. Clearly there has already been a considerable amount of good work done in this field. Our hope is to see that intensified and we believe that the passage of this Bill will give that an impetus and a focus.

9.15 p.m.

As regards the vote to which the noble Lord, Lord McNair, referred, it is not for me to comment. However, I make just two remarks. First, it is the luck of the draw as to how many noble Lords are in the House at any given time. Secondly, I do not believe that it was a fake vote. It is not very difficult to make up one's mind, whether one is in the Chamber or not, as to whether one is in favour of female circumcision or against it.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jeger, mentioned policing of circumcision records. The statistics to which the noble Baroness, Lady Jeger, referred are not for female circumcision as such. They are legitimate medical procedures on the same part of the anatomy. There is no policing of that now and no evidence that any is, or will be, necessary. It would be very difficult to monitor—and I am talking slightly off the top of my head—because in the past, when the legal position has not been clear, no cases have been brought before the courts in order to decide this matter from a legal point of view. That is in one way the reason we have the Bill. I believe that monitoring would be an extremely difficult exercise. However, I can say that my department will look into it.

Once again, I congratulate the supporters of the Bill. I am sorry that this measure had to have any note of sourness in the debate, but I commend the Bill to your Lordships.

Lord Hatch of Lusby

My Lords, before the noble Baroness sits down—

Baroness Trumpington

My Lords, I have sat down.

Lord Hatch of Lusby

—may I ask two questions? I gathered, by implication, that the answer to the second question is, no, that the Government have not consulted the London Black Women's Action Project. But in the case of the first question, on whether the Government have consulted their own statutory body, the Commission for Racial Equality, the noble Baroness seemed to slide away from it. The noble Baroness said that the Government had observed and considered its findings, but I asked whether the Government had consulted the commission after it had passed its judgment; or are the Government just saying, "We know better than our own statutory body set up to examine racial discrimination"? Have the Government consulted that commission? Can we have a straightforward answer?

Baroness Trumpington

My Lords, if the noble Lord reads Hansard tomorrow, he will find that I gave an answer. If one disagrees with something, one produces something else instead. As I said earlier, the commission has never made any positive response to the position put to it by the Government.

Lord Kennet

My Lords, perhaps I may join my voice to that of the noble Lord, Lord McNair, in congratulating the two sponsors of the present Bill—Mrs. Roe, who is at the Bar of the House now, and the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, in this House—on all the immense amount of work, in very difficult circumstances, which they have put into the Bill. If I may speak on behalf of the "sour" faction, our quarrel is in no way with either of the two sponsors of this Private Member's Bill.

I had hoped not to speak at this stage on the Bill, but what the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, said about the recent vote on the last stage of the Bill makes it necessary that I should. I should like to put on record, very briefly and as objectively as I can, that some years ago a handful of Members of both Houses of Parliament thought that it would be a good plan to clarify the law by making it beyond doubt that female circumcision is illegal in this country. When the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists saw the first Bill to do this they thought that the Bill would restrict in certain ways their freedom to carry out normal and medically desirable operations. Whether they were right or not, I do not know. The Government thought they were right and therefore very sensibly drafted an amendment to the Bill to relieve the Royal College of that doubt. They prepared something to put it right. This was the point at which the Commission for Racial Equality said that the proposed Government amendment was racially discriminatory.

There are no two ways about it. This is the statutory adviser of the Government and Parliament has endowed it with certain executive functions under the law. It is a powerful and respected body which gave that opinion and which has held to it throughout. Despite that, the Government put the matter to a vote in this House and the House rejected the amendment, almost entirely of course because of the opinion of the Commission for Racial Equality. That was the first time the dining room vote was brought in, and it was a very close vote indeed.

The Bill then passed unamended to the House of Commons where the Government killed it under the increasingly criticised Friday morning procedure —commonly known as "The Slaughter of The Innocents"—by which a Government Whip, speaking from a seated position, calls out the one word "Object", which kills the Bill without any discussion.

A new Bill was then introduced, again it was a Private Member's Bill, which contained the text of the rejected amendment. By this time the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, by natural developments, had a new president. A meeting was held at which the new president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the legal adviser of the Commission for Racial Equality, together with representatives of the BMA and the GMC and two or three other royal colleges and the friends of the Bill considered a new form of words proposed by the president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, which in the opinion of all those present, would have preserved the rightful medical freedom of the obstetricians while at the same time removing the form of words and the legal root which had been attacked by the Commission for Racial Equality as discriminatory.

This new amendment was conveyed to the Government in a spirit of hope by all those bodies concerned. However, at this point the Government evidently took a decision because from that moment they refused to discuss the matter with anybody—not with their own advisers, nor the professional medical organisations and scientific organisations, nor those behind the scenes who were doubtful about the content of the Bill. Above all, they did not meet the representatives of the black communities concerned who will have the trouble of adapting themselves to this Bill.

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists at that stage showed that they were open to any new form of words which preserved their freedoms, and when the Government asked them if the existing Bill satisfactorily preserved their freedoms, they said, "yes". Of course they were quite right. The implication is that racial discrimination is not a matter with which obstetricians should concern themselves. It would be a chaotic world if they did. That concerns the Commission for Racial Equality. The Commission for Racial Equality remained unsatisfied and so did the principal organisation of the principal ethnic minority concerned by the Bill.

We then came to the last stage of the Bill in this House, which the noble Lord, Lord McNair, described with such eloquence—in my view justified eloquence—when the Bill was rammed through on a kind of hearsay Government Whip, despite the fact that the enormous majority of those who voted knew nothing whatever about the matter. Just now the noble Baroness astonished me and the whole House, I think, by making a disgraceful statement. She said that it was not necessary for those in the dining room to have heard the debate, because anybody could make up their mind whether they were for or against female circumcision. That statement implies that those in the House who voted for the amendment as it was at that time were and are in favour of female circumcision. That is what she thinks the vote was about. If I misinterpret her, I shall willingly yield to rectification. She thinks that that vote was between those who were in favour of and those who were against female circumcision. I think that in default of further clarification from the noble Baroness I can only say that if that is what she thought, I am not surprised that this is the way that the Government have gone on throughout.

Baroness Trumpington

I must say, my Lords, that I have had my doubts about the noble Lord's carryings on during the Bill.

Lord Kennet

My Lords, the noble Baroness has had her doubts about my carryings on during the Bill. Her assertion rests that in her belief the Division at Report stage was between those in favour of female circumcision who were defeated and those against it who won an amendment. In other words, those of us who took up this matter some years before the Government got round to it and have worked on it for some years with a great deal of professional and charitable skill behind us have been throughout in favour of female circumcision. I think the country, and I hope the press, will note her statement with interest.

The Bill goes forth and we all wish it to become a successful Act and to do good and not harm. It would he wrong to pass over even at this stage the Lord Chancellor's opinion, which he gave this House before the whole matter began, that female circumcision is now and always has been illegal under existing law, but he did not object to the attempt to clarify the position. So that stands, for whatever value it has.

I must say that I think the degree of sensitivity shown by the Government in the history of this Bill cannot fill one with hope about the capacity of the Government or at least of the present ministerial and legal team at the DHSS to handle the much more difficult matter of in vitro fertilisation which will be coming before Parliament quite soon. If that is the kind of thing that they think about female circumcision, God help us when it comes to IVF!

Having said all that, I am at one with the promoters of the Bill, as are all my friends who are doubters on this side of the House, in hoping that it succeeds in ending the practice and does not generate the ill effects which some have feared it may.

Baroness Vickers

My Lords, I should like to say a word or two about this. I, too, have lived in Africa, though not for as long as the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, or the noble Lady, Lady Kinloss. As I mentioned to the noble Lord when he kindly drew my attention to his film at the beginning, I was interested because of what I had previously seen overseas. I should like also to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jeger. On these matters she has always been completely independent. She and I in the other House had struggles over legislation. I am glad to see that she continues to support the female side.

We should not have got anywhere at all had we relied on men to give us any position in the world. We had to fight for the right to vote even. Many of us would not be in the House today had we not fought. What we want to do now is to encourage black women to carry on—I shall not say the fight, but there are very good reasons for wanting to help females in other countries and in this country. I pay tribute to black women. It is never easy to go against the customs of one's country, but they are very plucky. I hope they succeed. They are far better placed to take action than we are. For that reason I am very pleased that we are to have this Bill.

I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, again. He has been very generous in his remarks, and I know what a bitter disappointment it was for him at the beginning. Finally, I should like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, for taking over this Bill. Here again we have to have women to fight for women. I wish her every success with the Bill and hope that it will really succeed in the end. I think that it will bring a lot of happiness to many people.

9.30 p.m.

Lord McNair

My Lords, I wonder whether I may help the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington. I think she has done herself far less than justice and has put herself into an impossible position. That vote about which I spoke, which I raised as a procedural matter, was on this amendment: Page 2, line 16, leave out from ('any') to the end of line 18 and insert ('non-medical factors')". It was not for or against female circumcision, and she knows it was not. would she not like to say something else to put this matter straight?

Baroness Trumpington

My Lords, no, I really do not think I would. The whole point is that the argument went on and on over every small matter concerned with this Bill, when all we really wanted was a straight Bill to outlaw female circumcision. I stand to be open to correction but it seemed to me that noble Lords from the Alliance Benches had got themselves into such an infernal mess over their ideas of having a time-lag, changing Clause 2, that they were really risking the Bill. It seemed to me that their obsession with changing the wording had overcome their desire for the actual Bill. If I am wrong, I am sorry, but that is my own personal feeling.

Baroness Masham of Ilton

My Lords, I know we were kept waiting an hour by the previous Bill, having been told that we would be on at about half-past seven; and I apologise for this. I do not apologise to certain noble Lords for keeping them waiting for one more minute while I thank all those people who have spent many hours over this very serious problem of trying to prohibit female circumcision. I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, who spent many hours inside and outside the House over this matter. I should like to thank all those people who have helped this Bill through your Lordships' House.

I want to say this to the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, in answer to what he said to me, to try to explain to him what I really feel. What I feel is that female circumcision, which is female mutilation, is discriminating in itself. It discriminates against the freedom of women who know no better, and therefore it is discriminating against women. Therefore the people who have been really direct in this present piece of legislation and have not wavered at all are the women.

It is the midwives who generally perform female circumcision, and they do it for money. I hope very much that the prison sentence and the fine in this Bill will stop them even thinking of doing it. I hope that the press will give some publicity to the Bill so that everybody knows that it is clearly not allowed and that that message will go down to the people it involves. I should like to say that it has been a very great pleasure being associated with and working with the honourable Member, Mrs. Roe. I beg to move.

On Question, Bill read a third time, and passed.