Baroness Penn (Con)

I thank the noble Lord for that offer; I really appreciate it. Just to touch on the points made by my noble friend Lord Jackson, I absolutely heard his support for flexible working. In fact, one of the points I just made is that I am really keen, as noble Lords will hear from me on later amendments on paternity leave, that we shift some of the assumptions around who might need and use flexible working and other kinds of flexibility in the workplace, so that we do not assume that it is just the women or the mums. Then they might actually face less discrimination, because an employer cannot look at someone and say, “I think this person’s going to make a particular request of me and I’m a bit nervous about that: how’s that going to work?” The whole basis of this, and the whole success behind it, will be in having the support of employers. This is an area where culture has shifted. There is further to go among some employers, but they really see the benefits of this in their workplaces, so although I have tabled an amendment to provide a legislative underpinning to things, I think it is about changing culture and having a more open conversation. With that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.