My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, in his very reasonable request for the Minister to confirm that a review will take place.
I remember that some 20 years ago I was challenging the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, when he was Health Minister. The pledge for single-sex wards had been made by his predecessor, the noble Baroness, Lady Jay. It was a very slow road towards single-sex wards. Reading Annex B, it seems that, suddenly, we are in a completely different place—the goalposts have been moved. I do not quite understand who was consulted about Annex B and where we go from here, in the face of completely different wording in the main guidance from the annex itself. How can one reconcile the gender-friendly Annex B with a single-sex broad pledge in the main guidance? At the very least, there needs to be a review of what exactly the regime is that we want to support? I entirely agree with noble Lords who believe that anyone who raises this issue should not be labelled in one way or another.
I was particularly concerned to see that, effectively, if you classify yourself as non-binary you can choose to go into a ward of any sex. I do not know that I see that in any equalities legislation or human rights legislation. That seems to me to be the hardest point. I cannot understand quite why that has appeared.
No purpose is served by lurid examples of this, that and the other. As a lawyer, I know that hard cases make bad law but, at the very least, the conflict between the main guidance and Annex B must be resolved in one way or another, clearly, and probably with parliamentary approval. It must conform with equalities legislation, and I hope that the Minister pledges to take that forward.