The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Paul Scully)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) on securing this debate, following the debate that we had in Westminster Hall, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing us to discuss this important and sensitive issue. It is so important that we hear the examples that she mentioned. We must give our sympathies to people who have lost a much-wanted baby at any stage of their pregnancy, including though miscarriage, and always reach out to them and support them. She spoke with much passion, as she always does on this issue, and I am grateful for her continued work to raise awareness of the significant impact of baby loss at any stage on those parents. I also thank everybody who contributed to the debate and supports the discussions around baby loss.
The hon. Member asked what the Government are doing to support people following a miscarriage. I am pleased to say that we have support in place for both employers and employees, to guide employers to do the right thing by their staff and to protect employees when they need to take time off. I have talked about how losing a baby at any stage is devastating and how those people need their employers to respond with compassion.
I want to set out briefly the wider work that the Government are talking forward on women’s health, including in the workplace, because this is integral to the strategy. In March 2021, we announced the establishment of England’s first women’s health strategy, led by the Department of Health and Social Care. Health in the workplace, fertility, pregnancy, pregnancy loss and post-natal support will be priority areas in that strategy. As we have heard, damaging taboos and stigmas remain around many areas of women’s health, and they can prevent women from starting conversations about their health or seeking support for a health issue, whether through medical help or help from their employers. When women do speak about their health, all too often they are not listened to. We are determined to tackle those issues. Women need to feel supported in the workplace, and those taboos are broken down through open conversation.
Our vision for the women’s health strategy, which was published on 23 December 2021, sets out an ambitious and positive new agenda to improve the health and wellbeing of women across England. We will publish the full strategy later this year.
The Government have an active agenda on work and health more widely. One example of that is our response to the “Health is everyone’s business” consultation published in July 2021, which sets out measures that we will take to protect and maintain progress made to reduce ill health and related job loss and to see 1 million more disabled people in work from 2017 to 2027. Those measures are part of the wider support system that I mentioned and are key steps in our effort to change the workplace culture around health and sickness absence. Changing that culture through opening up conversations in the workplace will benefit anyone who has health issues at work, including those who have lost a pregnancy.
So far I have talked about physical health, but for some people the feelings of grief and loss associated with a miscarriage are overwhelming and have an impact on their mental health. Our excellent national health service is there to support individuals when such feelings are particularly debilitating, or are likely to have a longer-term impact on their mental or physical health. We are expanding access to psychological and talking therapies within specialist perinatal mental health services, with 26 hubs due to open by April 2022. The hubs will offer treatment for a range of mental health issues, as well as bereavement services.
As part of the Government’s commitment to build back better, we published our mental health recovery action plan, which is backed by an additional £500 million this financial year to ensure we have the right support in place. That is in addition to the £2.3 billion of additional funding we are investing in mental health services by 2023-24. We also remain committed to achieving parity between mental and physical health services and reducing mental health inequalities. We are making good progress, with investment in NHS mental health services continuing to increase each year from £11 billion in 2015-16 to £14.3 billion in 2020-21.
I know that the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) is specifically interested in, and always speaks passionately about, a leave entitlement for miscarriage. Parental bereavement leave and pay may not be that entitlement, but it does two important things. First, it supports parents who have suffered that tragic unimaginable loss we have talked about. Secondly, it sets a statutory baseline for employers, sending an important message that the Government expect employers to support their staff following any type of bereavement. That bereavement leave is available to parents who have lost a child under 18 or who have suffered a stillbirth after 24 weeks. That definition of stillbirth is a clinical one.
Miscarriage is undoubtedly a very personal experience and some people affected may want to stay at home, while others may prefer to continue to work or alternatively need time off later. That is why the Government support employers and employees to have those conversations about what is happening in their lives and what support they need, giving them the flexibility to have that approach. Employers are best-placed to understand their own people and to develop a solution that works for the individual.
There are really good examples of companies treating their employees with compassion and going beyond the statutory minimum we set. That is valuable to the employer as well as to the employee. Increased loyalty to employees can improve the retention rate. There is a bottom-line argument for employers, because after investing time in people it seems daft to then not give them the flexibility to keep them within the workforce. Rewarding them well will keep them productive if they feel a valued member of the team.
We heard about the pregnancy loss pledge, which is an excellent example of exactly what I have been saying: encouraging employers to show empathy and understanding towards people experiencing pregnancy loss, and having a supportive work environment where people can openly discuss their needs following a loss.
In this difficult economic climate, the Government are mindful of placing extra statutory burdens on businesses, but for those businesses that can go further we strongly encourage them to do so. We fully expect that in time others will follow that lead. On flexibility, I can give the example of ASOS, which has life events leave. In recent debates we have talked about endometriosis, neonatal care, other caring responsibilities, menopause and now miscarriage. All those things fit partly within the women’s health strategy I was talking about, but in those life event situations it is absolutely incumbent on employers to value their people and show flexibility if they want the reward of their employees remaining productive and loyal in turn.
When it comes to helping employers to be sympathetic and supportive, one of our most important tools is guidance. We recently commissioned a significant update of the guidance on “Managing Bereavement in the Workplace”. That includes a new section on supporting employees after a miscarriage before 24 weeks of pregnancy and offers examples of best practice. The guidance can be found now on the ACAS website. Flexible working is integral to this issue. Yes, it is not a replacement for leave, but having access to flexible working arrangements can be a really important tool to support those in employment who experience a difficult life event. Changing a work pattern can provide individuals with the flexibility they need to balance their work commitments with their personal lives during such challenging times. Having a statutory right to request a temporary or permanent working arrangement could therefore be beneficial to individuals grieving a miscarriage.
We have taken forward our manifesto commitment to consult on making flexible working the default unless employers have good reason not to do it. That consultation contained measures that would increase the availability and support the uptake of flexible working arrangements, including whether to extend the right to request flexible working to all employees from the first day of employment. We have received 1,600 responses and we are going through them now. We will issue our response in due course.
Justin Madders
I just want to clarify: is the Minister seriously suggesting that someone who has had a miscarriage should make a flexible working application, which could take weeks or months to resolve?
Paul Scully
I am saying that it is one of the tools for employers to value their people, which is why we want to ensure that we can have a tailored response to people’s life events. I talked about miscarriage and we have also rightly talked about all the other areas, including women’s health and, indeed, men’s health, whether that is mental or physical. Flexible working can be at the heart of wraparound care for employees, but it is not the only tool.
Chris Stephens
Those of us on the SNP Benches often accuse the Government of stealing ideas from their distant cousin, the Liberal party of Australia. Is this not a case where the Liberal party of Australia is correct and more progressive than this Government on paid miscarriage leave?
Paul Scully
I am saying that we want to work with employers. We want to showcase the very best and to explain to employers—rightly—that any statutory limit we set is a minimum limit. Any sensible employer that values its people understands that very few businesses, if any, are anything without loyal, productive people. They can value them by showing increased flexibility, including through the examples that I gave of compassionate leave for life events.
Our consultation also talked about ad hoc flexible working and we want to explore how non-contractual flexibility works in practice. That can be done far faster than over the weeks talked about by the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders). I have discussed the question with the flexible working taskforce, which will ensure that the role of ad hoc flexible working and the question of supporting women with health conditions are part of its considerations.
We have heard about employment measures and when they are coming to the House. I reassure Members that the Government are committed to building a high-skill, high-productivity and high-wage economy that delivers on our ambition to make the UK the best place in the world to work and grow a business. We will do that by continuing to champion a flexible and dynamic labour market and as we build back better we will introduce new employment measures to make it easier for people to enter and remain in work as soon as parliamentary time allows.
I extend my condolences once again to anyone who has experienced the loss of a baby. I understand and sympathise with the difficulties suffered by parents in this situation. I have highlighted some of the broad range of activity that the Government already have under way to support people in the workplace who experience difficult life events, including those who have lost a baby. It is also the case that employers have an important part to play because they know their employees and that a supportive workplace benefits both employees and employers, including on productivity and wellbeing.
I thank the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East once again for her contributions to the debate and I thank everybody who has worked hard to raise awareness of the impact of miscarriage.