Skills and Labour Shortages

Lord Brady of Altrincham Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2023 Westminster Hall

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I think the adult education budget has something to do with that, but the hon. Lady is right to point to the improvements that we need to make in numeracy and literacy. Clearly, that is not directly the responsibility of my Department, but I am very keen to go back to DFE and make sure that it is aware of her views.

On identifying skills gaps, evidence from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development shows that 46% of employers reported having hard-to-fill vacancies. The top response from employers with hard-to-fill vacancies has been to upskill staff, which is clearly key. We know which regions have the highest skill-shortage density, and we know about the impact on employers when they lose business. The key areas where we feel that the skills gaps are most acute are workforce sectors with high volumes of vacancies, green jobs, which have been mentioned by many Members, growth sectors, and science and tech. We are committed to tackling these skills gaps through major investment and reforms to skill and further education provision.

I turn to some of the excellent work done by my colleagues in the Department for Education on apprenticeships, which were mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet and the hon. Member for Chesterfield. There have been over 5.1 million apprenticeship starts since May 2010. In recent years we have transformed apprenticeships, driving up the quality so that they better meet the skills needs of employers. I fully recognise and support businesses’ calls for us to make the levy funds more flexible, but we have to see the issue in context.

Some of the earlier apprenticeship schemes were criticised for not being sufficiently robust and challenging, or of the right quality. It is about striking a balance, but I am very impressed by some of the skills bootcamp-type schemes that perhaps we should focus on in order to give more flexibility. I went to see a new initiative called Trade Up, which seeks to double the number of construction workers. It is a private sector initiative with very short, 10 to 16-week courses, and it involves getting gas fitters and joiners back into the sector.

There are lots of different solutions that we need to look at. The Government have launched T-levels for young people, which will boost access to high-quality technical education. The Government are also committed to ensuring that, at any stage, adults can upskill to reach their potential through skills bootcamps and level 3 free courses for jobs in priority areas. The adult education budget, and giving adults a funding entitlement to get English, maths and digital qualifications, is hugely important, as the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran said.

The Government’s research and development people and culture strategy puts people at the heart of research and development, and sets out our plans to attract enough people with the rights skills across all roles. We are aiming for a full pipeline of research and innovation workers for the future. A huge part of understanding the role that skills play is making sure that we can respond to labour market shortages. The Government are working closely with businesses, and encouraging them to take a stronger role in providing their workforce with skills and training.

Do you want me to conclude, Sir Graham?

[Sir Graham Brady (in the Chair)]

That would be a good idea.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Okay. I will touch on immigration, because it is hugely important. Clearly, this is a key part of the system. We have the new points-based immigration system, and it is critical to people who voted to leave the European Union that we control migration. Clearly, it is important that we take a pragmatic view. We are monitoring the situation—for instance, we added care staff to the shortage occupation list only this year. I have great sympathy with asylum seekers, and as a Back Bencher I said that we should be more flexible. The issue is one that Members might want to discuss with the Home Office, which has direct responsibility for it.

I thank the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran for securing this very important debate. It has been fascinating and stimulating, and we have had a great discussion on a topic that everyone across these Benches believes is vital.

UK Steel Sector: Supply Chains

Lord Brady of Altrincham Excerpts

Wednesday 9th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Sir Graham Brady (in the Chair)]

I remind hon. Members that there have been some changes to normal practice in order to support the new hybrid arrangements. Timings of debates have been amended to allow technical arrangements to be made for the next debate. There will be suspensions between debates.

I remind Members participating, physically and virtually, that they must arrive for the start of a debate in Westminster Hall and are expected to remain for the entire debate. I must also remind Members participating virtually that they are visible at all times, both to one another and to us in the Boothroyd Room. If Members attending virtually have any technical problems, they should email the Westminster Hall Clerks’ email address, which is [e-mail]. Members attending physically should clean their spaces before using them and before leaving the room. I remind Members that Mr Speaker has stated that masks should be worn in Westminster Hall. There is nobody sitting in the Public Gallery in order to speak.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the UK steel sector and its supply chains.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Graham. Hon. Members taking part in the debate today will recognise that this is not the first time that we have sought assurances from the UK Government that they are sincerely committed to supporting the British steel industry. Indeed, by my calculations, since 2015 Labour MPs have secured 19 debates and urgent questions on steel, made 51 speeches on steel, asked 54 oral questions on steel, and intervened on or responded to Ministers 103 times on the future of our steel industry. A pessimist may ask, “What’s the point?”. After all that pressure, the British steel industry still faces a range of serious challenges, and the UK Government are continually failing to provide the necessary level of support to allow the UK steel sector to compete.

In spite of those powerful headwinds, I am optimistic about the future of our steel industry, because I believe that covid-19 has completely reset the way in which the British people think about the sort of country they want to live in. The public want a Britain that can stand on its own two feet and that is more resilient to external shocks. The pandemic has exposed the weaknesses and vulnerabilities that lie at the heart of our economy and our society. The pandemic has demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that if we wish to address those weaknesses and vulnerabilities, we must commit to and invest in a renaissance of modern manufacturing in our country.

British manufacturing has been in decline, dropping from 30% of GDP in the 1970s to just 9% today. The UK’s shift towards a city-centric, service-based economy means that it is now the most geographically unequal country in northern Europe. We have the richest area in the whole of northern Europe—London—but also the five least prosperous areas, with west Wales and the valleys the poorest of all.

Today, our country stands at a fork in the road, and the choice is clear. Are we going to continue to allow our manufacturing sector to wither away, constantly eroded by the sort of policies that have come to define the last decade and which are advocated in the book of the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, “Britannia Unchained”: “Let the market rip. Let the City of London call the shots. Let globalisation and deindustrialisation ride roughshod over our communities.”? Or are we going to truly understand the pandemic as a clear and unambiguous warning that we cannot go back to business as usual and that we must strive for real enduring change; that we must stand on our own two feet by reducing our dangerous over-reliance on imports from China; that it is time to recognise that the collapse of British manufacturing is the primary cause of the grotesque inequality that exists between the wealthiest and the poorest regions of our country; and that a modern manufacturing renaissance is our only route towards a fair and just transition to a cleaner, greener future?

Our manufacturing base can be rebuilt only if it is based on a strong and healthy steel industry, because steel is a vital foundational industry that is critical for our security, prosperity and green resilience. Our economic and national security are underpinned by steel. Every military vehicle, major infrastructure project and power station requires steel. In a world where strategic competition between democracies and dictatorships is intensifying on an almost daily basis, it is crucial that as much of that steel as possible is produced here in the UK.

Our prosperity as a nation is also dependent on steel as a vital foundational industry that feeds into our entire manufacturing sector. Steel jobs are good jobs that pay an average annual salary of £36,000, which is 36% higher than the Welsh average, and the Port Talbot steelworks in my Aberavon constituency provides 4,000 such jobs, alongside thousands more through the supply chains.

Home-grown steel is also the only route to tackling climate change. Steel will play a critical role in greening our economy by building the electric cars of the future and providing vital components for solar, wind and tidal power. Moreover, British production processes have half the carbon footprint of China’s far less decarbonised steel industry, and shipping steel from the other side of the world is obviously more carbon intensive.

Whether we look at the British steel industry through the prism of our national security, regional prosperity or planetary sustainability, we draw the same conclusion: there can be no sustainable post-pandemic economic recovery without a strong and healthy steel industry. The arguments are compelling, irrefutable and over-whelming, so it is difficult to understand why the UK Government have been so slow to act, but the pandemic has put rocket boosters on the need for a modern manufacturing renaissance underpinned by the rebirth of our steel industry.

The Government must now take the following steps. First, they must reject the recommendation of the Trade Remedies Investigations Directorate regarding steel safeguards, and must ensure that all 19 of the safeguards remain in place. Those trade defence measures were put in place to guard against import surges caused by President Trump’s section 232 tariffs, and it is essential that they are retained until such time as the section 232 tariffs are dropped by the Biden Administration. The TRID’s recommendations are tantamount to dismantling the flood defences just as the tidal wave is about to hit. Will the Minister assure us that she has made the position of the steel industry, steel unions and steel MPs clear to her colleagues in the Department for International Trade?

Secondly, the Government must as a matter of urgency address the issue of our industrial energy crisis. British steelmakers pay 86% more than their German competitors and 62% more than the French. Over the past five years, that disparity has cost the UK steel industry an additional £254 million. Those additional costs represent funds that should and would have been directed towards critical capital investment, including decarbonisation projects. Will the Minister please assure us today that her Department is truly committed to tackling the root causes of the UK’s astronomical industrial energy prices, and can she set out her urgent action plan for doing so?

Thirdly, we need a patriotic procurement policy. It is absurd and inexcusable that the Ministry of Defence is buying Type 26 frigates for the Royal Navy that are built with Swedish steel. We need procurement that gives the right weighting to local value. Let us look at big opportunities such as High Speed 2, with 2 million tonnes of steel. How much of that steel is going to be British? Can the Minister assure us today that every Government Department and HS2 will be signed up to the steel charter by the end of this calendar year?

Fourthly, we need a Government who are truly committed to rebuilding our manufacturing base, and who believe in partnering with industry to do so. Some say that steel is a sunset industry, but nothing could be further from the truth—it is at the cutting edge of innovation. Indeed, the vast majority of the alloys that are used in steel these days did not even exist 10 years ago. It is absurd to have a Government who have utterly failed to support the Orb plant in Newport—I look to my hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden)—which could play a major role in electric vehicles.

It seems that the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing, which is precisely why co-ordinating forums such as the Industrial Strategy Council are so important. Can the Minister please explain why the Industrial Strategy Council has been closed down by the Business Secretary, and can she please tell us whether she thinks that decision will be a help or hindrance to the future of the British steel industry?

British steelworkers are a strong, proud community of men and women who make the best steel that money can buy. They are certainly not looking for anybody’s charity, special treatment or favours. They are simply seeking the opportunity to compete without having one hand tied behind their back. They are simply asking for a level playing field. Since 2010, successive Conservative Governments have let them down by leaving the flood gates open to heavily subsidised imports from China; by failing to close the energy price gap; by declining to develop a patriotic procurement policy; and by failing to grasp the vital role that a home-grown steel industry must play in driving the green industrial revolution forward.

Receiving a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work is as important to steelworkers as it is to every other working person across the length and breadth of our country. However, working people are motivated by far more than money. Above all, they are driven by the sense of pride and dignity that their work gives them, and steelworkers are certainly not an exception to that rule.

Steelworkers do long shifts in challenging conditions because they want to make a contribution. They are fiercely proud of the fact that steel is the basis of the houses we live in, the offices we work in and the cars we drive. They are steelworkers because they want to do their bit for their country, for their communities, and for their families. They are steelworkers because they want to be part of something bigger, but they cannot do this alone.

They need a Government who will back them to the hilt; a Government who will put policies in place that attract investment, rather than drive it away; a Government who truly believe that a country should be able to stand on its own two feet. Our steelworkers need a Government who are genuinely committed to reversing the decline of manufacturing in this country. They need a Government who are truly invested in swinging the pendulum from cities to towns, and from London and the south-east to the rest of the country. Britain needs its steel, and our steelworkers need a Government who are on their side.

[Sir Graham Brady (in the Chair)]

I should inform all participants that due to a technical problem, all those participating virtually did not catch the first three minutes of the debate. That has now been resolved, but I pass on the apologies of the staff who have been working to resolve the problem.

There are a lot of Back-Bench participants on the call list. If it is possible for them to keep to about five minutes, we should be able to get everybody in.

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[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. Like everyone else, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) for securing this very important debate today.

This year marks the 125th year of production at Shotton steelworks on Deeside, which is a remarkable achievement. I hope and trust that we will see another 125 years. I doubt I will still be here to celebrate that, but we all live in hope. Order books are good and Shotton continues to produce high-quality value-added products, which is a great credit to the workforce and the management of the plant, yet we only have to look at Shotton’s history to understand the highs and lows that the industry faces as a whole. In 1980, more than 6,500 jobs were lost on a single day— at the time, it was the largest redundancy at a single plant in the history of western Europe. Those jobs have never come back. The plant today is still efficient and profitable, but Shotton cannot function on its own—it relies on Port Talbot for its steel—just as the industry cannot function as individual plants.

The UK steel industry has been in a fragile state for many years, seemingly lurching from one crisis to another. We have a Government who talk about their support for the industry going forward, but their actions—or, rather, lack of action—tell a very different story. Only when a plant or business is on the verge of collapse do they seem to show any interest in the steel industry, and they lose interest again when the plant either is saved in the short term or has collapsed. If steel is to have a future in the UK, we need a Government who recognise that we have to have a long-term plan to support the industry.

It is no good saying simply that steel needs to modernise or decarbonise its business, or that somehow hydrogen will save the day at some point in the future. That will not happen if we do not support and maintain a viable business today. Hydrogen might well be the future, but it is some way off and we cannot just use it as an excuse to do nothing now. That means addressing what many other colleagues have mentioned—the ludicrous situation where steel manufacturers here pay 62% more for electricity than those in France, and 86% more than those in Germany. That is not a new problem; it is something we have been banging on about year in, year out, but—shock, horror!—nothing changes, nothing happens. All we are told by the Government is to take it up with Ofgem, but we all know the answer we will get. All Ofgem says is that there is nothing it can do. I would argue that Ofgem seems intent on making the situation worse, rather than better. How can we seriously expect the industry to invest in the future when it has both hands tied firmly behind its back?

We were always told that nothing could be done and that, as with so many other things, it was all Europe’s fault. The same public procurement argument was constantly wheeled out, as a number of colleagues have said. Other European countries managed to do something, but for some unknown reason we could not. Even that excuse has gone now, however, and the UK Government need to step up to the plate.

The UK steel industry supplies only about 10% of public sector current requirements. That needs to increase dramatically. The Government need to work with the industry to make that happen. The Prime Minister talks a lot about infrastructure projects, shovel-ready projects post covid. I had the pleasure of speaking in the restoration and renewal debate the other day, and I said that this place should be the very starting point of using UK steel. UK steel must be the centre of any recovery. It must be not an afterthought, but at the very heart of such projects.

We cannot carry on as we are now. We need the Government to step up and to support our industry. It needs support now.

[Sir Graham Brady (in the Chair)]

For the guidance of Members, I intend to call the first of the Front Benchers winding up the debate at 10.23 am.

Crown Post Offices: Franchising

Lord Brady of Altrincham Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Sir Graham Brady (in the Chair)]

Order. Before I call the next speaker, I will explain that we have just over half an hour before the wind-up speeches need to begin. Three Back-Bench Members are seeking to catch my eye. I would rather avoid imposing a time limit, but if the three can consider each other we will avoid it.

Bereavement Leave: Loss of a Child

Lord Brady of Altrincham Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Westminster Hall

[Paul Masterton]

I could not agree more. Grief affects everyone differently, and it can sometimes be months or even years before the true ramifications and consequences of someone’s experience really hit home. Grief can also potentially be the start of a cycle of behaviour that can lead to far more destructive circumstances, particularly in the family home. It is not uncommon for families who have suffered an extreme bereavement situation to end up breaking down completely, often, as the hon. Lady mentioned, because support in the early days and weeks might be good, but there is not sufficient follow-up to ensure that people do not go down the wrong path.

I hope that we, as a party, make good on our manifesto commitment. I have not been in this place for very long, but we seem to spend a lot of time beating each other about the head, so it is nice, every once in a while, to find something we can all work on together in a positive manner. I sincerely hope that this is one such issue. I look forward to hearing what other hon. Members have to say, and I thank them for coming to support the debate.

[Mr Graham Brady (in the Chair)]

At least five Back-Bench Members want to contribute. For the convenience of the House, I will say that I would like to move on to winding-up speeches by 5.10 pm at the very latest. I will not impose a time limit now, but I suggest that, if hon. Members could keep their contributions to no more than six or seven minutes, we might hope to get everybody into the debate.

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[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Brady. I thank the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Paul Masterton) for securing the debate and congratulate him on doing so. He is a constituent of mine, and the last time I spoke across the room from him was in Ralston community centre during a Ralston community council meeting, and I visited as his MP. These are somewhat different surroundings from the community centre, but there we are.

I echo my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) by paying the utmost respect to those hon. Members who have direct experience of losing a child but have found the courage to speak about their personal experience. By sharing their profoundly moving experiences, they have added so much not just to debates in this place, but to the wider debate. This House, if I may speak for it, is very grateful to them and very sorry for their loss.

I have friends and colleagues who have had to endure the unimaginable pain of losing a child. Although our first daughter was born more than six weeks premature, my wife and I have been very fortunate in her continuing health—touch wood—but we saw at first hand the raw pain of parents clinging to hope over the life chances of their newborn. Sadly, for some, what should be the happiest moment of their lives turns into the most traumatic.

This is an emotional debate, and in my view anyone who goes through the tragedy of losing a child should receive all the support and help that they require. I was shocked to learn as an employer when dealing with a bereaved parent for the first time that under the Employment Rights Act 1996, the statutory bereavement leave provision contains no minimum requirement. The amount of time off that a parent is allowed is whatever is considered reasonable by the employer. I would have hoped that most employers would give parents as much time as possible to help them to deal with the loss of a child, but as we have heard, that does not appear to be the case. In a national survey conducted last year, less than one third of British adults who were working at the time of their bereavement said that they felt supported by their employer. That highlights the need for a layer of protection, and I welcome the Government’s attempts to introduce a statutory requirement for paid leave in the event of the death of a child. There will be competing views on how much time should be provided to bereaved parents. The charity Bliss says that two weeks should be the minimum statutory entitlement. That would be a welcome start, but I believe that two weeks is not enough.

Any forthcoming legislation should be accompanied by revised guidance from ACAS on bereavement in the workplace. That would help to ensure consistency across the working environment, with both employers and employees being aware of their rights and responsibilities.

When discussing this issue, we should also take account of the level of bereavement support payment for low-income families with children who have suffered bereavement. The cynical “simplification” that has taken place with the introduction of that payment has resulted in 75% of claimants being worse off under BSP than they were under the previous system. In addition, the new payment is not planned to rise in line with inflation, meaning that it will lose value over time, even though funeral costs, as we have heard, continue to rise. I urge the Minister and the Government to examine the wider support in place for bereaved families, in particular the level of support provided via bereavement support payment.

Our goal in improving the system should be to provide the best level of support to parents who have lost a child, and to do so in a way that does not require parents to navigate a complicated administrative process. I am heartened by the cross-party consensus that seems to exist in this place and I look forward to working with colleagues to help to improve the system.

[Mr Graham Brady (in the Chair)]

We have just under 25 minutes to take the SNP spokesman, if she would like to contribute, the Opposition spokesman, the Minister and the Member who moved the motion, if he would like to make a brief response at the end. Again, I will not recommend specific times, but I am sure that all the speakers will be conscious of the time limits.

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[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Brady. We have had a very moving debate, full of passion, consideration, reflection and a lot of agreement on the issues involved. I congratulate the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Paul Masterton) on securing such an important debate.

The death of a child, as has been said, seems to go against the natural order of things, because all parents expect their children to outlive them, yet in the UK in 2015, more than 10,000 babies, children and young people up to the age of 25 died. That is 28 people a day. There are some things, such as registering a death, arranging a funeral and notifying family and friends, that have to be done immediately following a death, and they take time, as anyone who has lost a close family member will know. Whether that death has followed a long period in hospital or has come as a sudden shock, parents also need time to grieve. It is true that some people may find it helpful to return quickly to work, but others may need much longer before they are ready to start work again, and there is currently no statutory right to paid bereavement leave for parents following the death of a child.

Bills were introduced to remedy that position in 2013 by the then Labour Member for Glasgow South, and in 2016 by the hon. Member for Colchester (Will Quince). The latter Bill would have created an entitlement to at least two weeks’ paid bereavement leave for parents after the death of a child, at a rate that mirrors statutory maternity, paternity and shared parental leave. The private Member’s Bill on the issue promoted by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) is due to be debated on 20 October. As we have understood throughout this debate, there is a real opportunity for cross-party agreement on this issue.

I understand that the Bill has Government support and that the Minister’s Department has been consulting with employers, employee representatives and campaigners to better understand the needs of bereaved parents and employers. Will the Minister please update Members on those discussions and on the Government’s view on the form the legislation should take? Will she give a commitment that the Government will allow sufficient time for the Bill to reach the statute book?

The Employment Rights Act 1996 gives the right of an employee to have reasonable time off to deal with an emergency, such as a bereavement involving a dependant. The employer does not need to pay the employee for this time off, and what “reasonable” means is unclear. That can lead to problems when an employer chooses to ignore its moral responsibility to its staff. Of course, many employers treat requests for compassionate leave in situations like this sympathetically and do not try to force their employees to return to work before they are ready. They may offer paid leave and even have a compassionate leave or bereavement leave policy in place—for example, Facebook announced in February that it would allow its staff to take up to 20 days’ paid compassionate leave for the death of an immediate family member. However, a 2014 survey of HR professionals found that the average time that an employee in the UK takes off from work after the death of a close family member was five days. A TUC report published last week documented the increasing difficulty that employees have in obtaining leave for family reasons, especially when people are in insecure work, such as on a zero-hours contract. The study dealt with caring responsibilities rather than the death of a child, but—difficult as it may be to believe—there are employers that will pressure people to return to work immediately after their child has died.

The fact that we are debating this issue today owes much to Lucy Herd’s campaign for entitlement to parental leave following the death of a child. After her son Jack drowned in 2010, her then partner was only entitled to three days’ leave, one of which had to be for the funeral. Lucy’s online petition gained more than 230,000 signatures, and research published by the National Council for Palliative Care in 2014 found that 81% of people questioned believed that there should be a legal right to paid leave after bereavement on the death of a child or another immediate family member.

If someone is forced to return to work when they are not ready, they can find it impossible to function properly. In some cases the stress can cause them to become ill, and may actually lead to them taking more time off because of illness than if they had not initially returned so quickly. Respondents to the survey of HR professionals in 2014 overwhelmingly said that employees taking time out for compassionate reasons had no adverse effect on staff resourcing. In fact, the survey found that companies that did not offer paid compassionate leave were more likely to experience problems with staff resourcing.

That chimes with the findings of the National Council for Palliative Care’s research, in which a majority—56%—of people questioned said that they would consider leaving their job if their employer did not offer proper support in the event of a bereavement. However, the reality is that many people cannot afford to do that or, indeed, to take unpaid leave. Bereaved parents may face financial pressures in addition to having to cope with their grief. Most families suffer an immediate loss of income after the death of their child, owing to the cessation of benefits such as carer’s allowance, disability living allowance and child benefit. Families may also have got into debt if their child was in hospital or a hospice for a prolonged period.

I turn now to the details of how paid bereavement leave could be provided, because it is important that legislation takes account of the realities that bereaved parents face. Does the Minister agree that the legislation should allow bereaved parents as much flexibility as possible in when to take their paid bereavement leave and how it is taken? In some cases, for instance, it may take time to arrange a funeral because a post-mortem has to take place or family members have to travel long distances. Parents may also find that it is only after a certain time that the full impact of their child’s death hits them and they need to take time off. Will the Minister ask her colleagues at the Treasury to consider whether the entitlement to paid bereavement leave could be taken more flexibly than in one or two week blocks?

Around 60% of childhood deaths occur within the first year of life, and most babies who die very early in infancy will have spent most, if not all, of their lives in hospital. At the moment, if a baby dies while their mother or father is still receiving parental leave, that leave will continue until it would have concluded if their child had lived. However, a father may well have already used the entitlement to two weeks’ paternity leave, as well as their annual leave, even if their child dies within the first four weeks of life. If the baby has spent a long time in hospital before he or she dies, their mother may soon be due to return to work, or at least reaching the point where statutory maternity pay stops. Either parent in that situation may find it very difficult to obtain more time off work if their baby sadly dies after a prolonged hospital stay. Will the Minister tell us whether the Government support the right for bereaved parents to take statutory paid bereavement leave in addition to statutory paternity and maternity leave?

Finally, in this debate we have considered a statutory right to paid leave when someone is employed; however, parents who are self-employed or unemployed also need to make the necessary practical arrangements if a child dies, and to grieve. The Chancellor said in his March Budget that the most significant remaining difference in the entitlement to social security of the employed and self-employed was in relation to parental benefits, and that the Government would consult over the summer on options to address the disparities in that area. Can the Minister therefore tell us whether the Government believe—

[Mr Graham Brady (in the Chair)]

Order. I hesitate to interrupt the hon. Lady, but we really need to move on to the Minister’s winding-up speech now.

[Margaret Greenwood]

May I finish my sentence?

[Mr Graham Brady (in the Chair)]

If you finish it very quickly.

[Margaret Greenwood]

Can the Minister therefore tell us whether the Government believe that an equivalent to paid bereavement leave should be introduced for self-employed parents who are bereaved?