My Lords, I am very grateful to everyone who has spoken, and particularly to my noble friend Lord Winston, who made a very powerful point. It has reinforced the sense that this House is very concerned about this issue and not convinced that the welfare of pregnant women and the foetus inside them is being protected by the concessions that the Government have made.
I am grateful to the Minister for addressing all the questions that were asked. I do not think that it is just a question of elegance; it is a question of comprehensibility. I have to say that I did not understand a word of one of his answers, but that is probably me, and I shall put a towel over my head and finally understand it when I read it in Hansard. It does have resonances of Humpty Dumpty and words saying what I say they mean, and the,
“question is … which is to be master—that’s all”.
Unfortunately, it is the Government who are master and who have the power to decide these issues. The answers that I did understand from the noble and learned Lord were very disappointing. I have still not heard a good or proper reason as to why, if it is good enough for the guidance and it means something in the guidance, it is not good enough to be in the legislation. I am still worried that someone looking at both of them will think, “With regard to the legislation, the Government have actually gone backwards”.
I was not asking for a whole new review: I was asking for a very focused review of the process by which a woman is taken from her home into detention. As I
understand it, there has already been a commitment to look at transport; I am just asking for that to be broadened out to the whole process. It is not a big thing, and I have still not heard any explanation as to how this is going to be modelled on the family returns process. The noble and learned Lord said there was not going to be any further guidance on this, so it is just an empty claim unless someone can show us otherwise.
I hope that the noble and learned Lord, the Immigration Minister and the Home Secretary will take this away and read what has been said in this House. My noble friend Lord Rosser pointed out the really strange Commons procedures that do not allow the Minister to respond to perfectly good questions, but we at least have a chance to do that in this House. I hope that the people in the other place will all read what has been said in this House and will think about how, within the constraints of the legislation as it is, we could make this a more humane process. As we have heard, there is a lot at stake here. My noble friend Lord Winston said that it could be responsible for a heritable effect on the child. That is very serious, so I hope that this will be looked at further, even if it cannot be in the context of actual legislation. That said, like the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, I recognise when we are coming to the end of the road. Therefore, like him, with a very heavy heart indeed, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.