My Lords, with great alacrity, I support the amendment put forward so clearly by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. The noble Baroness, of course, has had a very distinguished career. We think of her as our first Lord Speaker in this House, but she also has a wide experience in health and other matters beyond. However, I just thought: “Breastfeeding? Why is she coming forward with an amendment on breastfeeding?” Then I understood that, when she was in the House of Commons, she was the first woman in Westminster to breastfeed. That must have taken a lot of courage and I congratulate her on that. Not only that, but, of course, as a Member of Parliament in the Commons, she also had the skills to manage the organisation of her constituency as well as a new baby. We know that new babies can be all-encompassing.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and I are fellow practitioners in breastfeeding. She has four sons and I have three sons. My aunt had six sons, and I thought that the writing was on the wall: three is plenty. I have to say that they have grown up and they are very nice young men. We, the practitioners of breastfeeding, know that breast is best. There is no argument about it: it is best for babies and best for mothers too. In fact, my husband said to me the other night: “It is best also for us, you know—the partners—because we don’t have to get up at two in the morning to feed the baby.” So he said there was a bonus there.
When I was a junior Minister in your Lordships’ House, I did my very best to promote designer food for babies. That is what we called it. We know that it improves the baby’s immune system, the respiratory system, the digestive system, the heart and circulation, the joints and muscles and much more. It is such an important start to life.
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We also know that breastfeeding is important for mothers in the short term. It helps with quicker recovery after birth; the uterus contracts when the woman is breastfeeding. It reduces the amount of bleeding after birth, and urinary tract infections. There are also a lot of longer-term benefits, but I will not go into those tonight. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, said in her introduction, it is really a public good. Despite all the positives I have just outlined—and there are many more—the UK has one of the lowest breastfeeding rates in Europe. I think that is troubling and disappointing.
Six years ago, I was invited by Simon Stevens—later Sir Simon Stevens, now the noble Lord, Lord Stevens—who was the chief executive of NHS England. He invited me to review maternity services for England. I think he had a sense of humour, because he gave us nine months to do the report. We were going around England, listening to women, practitioners, midwives,
obstetricians, paediatricians and so on, and we thought: how can we tackle some of this? One of the issues that came up was a programme called “continuity of carer”—the r at the end is important—because all the research, including high-quality research from Oxford and the Cochrane collaboration, shows that continuity of carer provides a safer service for mothers and their babies. Mothers value knowing the same midwife, and possibly her partner as well for when the midwife is on leave. These midwives will look after her during pregnancy and through the birth and provide care afterwards. No woman forgets the birth of her baby; it is a seminal time in her life. Women find it more rewarding, and safer. They know the research; they have told us it. Midwives also know the research and know it is a safer way to work, and that the relationship that is built is crucial to support the mother and the baby.
There are two remarkable midwives who set up independently two different schemes—one in the north of England and one in the south. They provided this care I am talking about. One system was called “one to one”. It is on the tin: it was one to one. That midwife has marked, watched and evaluated the breastfeeding rates of the women on the one-to-one system; and 98% who birthed in her units are breastfeeding. The other one, who set up Neighbourhood Midwives in a very poor part of London, told me that 94% of women who birthed in her unit were breastfeeding. So we know that there are other things you can do to promote it.
I was looking at some of the briefing I had from Stella Creasy MP: it is shameful that in 2015, Public Health England, in its Start4Life programme, found that more than a third of breastfeeding mothers were very shy. They were shy about breastfeeding in public, and that put them off, and they thought that people did not want them to breastfeed. I can remember being on a train, and there was this howling baby. People in the carriage were really upset by this, and the woman very discreetly fed her baby, and we were so relieved. It was terrific. There are ways of doing this.
It is important that we try to block all the different methods that prevent women breastfeeding. This amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, is another way of giving confidence to women, of ensuring that they will have the law behind them. She cited the upskirting amendment that went through. This seems to me to be much more important. This is our future generation we are bringing forward. We want this generation to benefit from all I have been talking about on breastfeeding.
I want to say one thing about the Commons debate, because it was interesting. I have a lot of respect for Victoria Atkins, the Minister who answered the debate. It was interesting that she said that
“breastfeeding provides a moment of tenderness, of love, and of innocence. To have a stranger defile that moment by trying to take photographs or video it—that is not something that would occur to most decent, right-thinking people. I very much understand why this new clause has been tabled, and I want to support the mothers and the women who are facing this.”—[Official Report, Commons, 24/6/21; col. 748.]
I thought: “That is so encouraging; we are really getting there.” But no. She then said that she would have to wait for the next part being put forward by the Law Commission. I know this House is full of lawyers.
This House probably has many lawyers who sit on the commission—I do not know. Forgive me, but I think the commission does not always act at speed. What we really want is some speed on this, because we have a problem. We can sort this problem—or help to sort it. We have this opportunity, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, said, and we should take it, because we need the next generation to have the best start to life, and we know it is in our hands, to some extent. So, I strongly support this amendment.