Bereavement Leave: Loss of a Child

Debate between Lord Brady of Altrincham and Margaret Greenwood

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Westminster Hall

[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?