Mothers will soon have the legal right to breast-feed babies in any public place, including trains, bars and restaurants.

Laws to be introduced in parliament later this year will make it an offence to stop any woman breast-feeding a baby aged up to six months. Currently women can face charges under public order or indecency laws. The change in the law follows an outcry by women who have been made to feel embarrassed for breast-feeding in public.

Last week a 23-year-old mother was told not to feed her three-month-old baby in a doctor’s surgery because it breached health and safety rules.

In one case, the National Gallery apologised to a woman who had been ordered to stop feeding her baby daughter near the famous Tintoretto painting Origin of the Milky Way. It shows Juno breast-feeding Hercules.

Britain has one of the lowest breast-feeding rates in Europe, with many mothers giving up soon after birth. While 75% of women breast-feed their newborns, this drops to 25% for sixmonth-olds.

A Cabinet Office spokesman said: “Final decisions have yet to be made, but the government is keen to give new mothers complete confidence to breast-feed while going about their normal business, for example while on the bus or in a cafe.”

Ministers have not yet decided whether to extend the right to women with babies older than six months. In Scotland the law was changed four years ago with no age limit on the child.

Although the change to the law is being championed by women MPs, they will not get the same right to breast-feed in committee rooms or the chamber of the Commons. The Houses of Parliament are a Royal Palace and exempt from the law.

At present MPs are allowed to breast-feed in designated areas in the Commons; after consultation with MPs, Michael Martin, the Speaker, refused to overturn the ban on breast-feeding in committees and during debates.

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