The expectation that women should take themselves out of their careers for long periods when they have children fuels a rising gender pay and opportunity gap. It’s a modern form of putting women in purdah, behind a curtain away from the world of money and power which remain predominantly in the hands of men.

You see it often with once-successful women who are pressured into the idea they’re supposed to take ages off. After long maternity leaves they struggle to return to the workplace. Feeling first alienated from work, with loss of confidence, then guilty about leaving their babies, it is made harder by employers who expect women to return on an all-or-nothing basis, like dropping off a cliff. Women can come back far behind in skills. Businesses, especially small ones, might have learned to manage without them because they have had to. A year is a long time to fall behind.

Yet that's what the Labour party is encouraging with the announcement in its manifesto of 12 months paid maternity leave for all women.