Parental Bereavement (Leave and Pay) Bill

Debate between Kevin Hollinrake and Michael Tomlinson

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 11th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I am very grateful for that informative interruption to my remarks. I was going to move on to the amendments, but the contributions of my colleagues and Opposition Members have helped to inform the discussion around them. However, of course I will respect your views, Madam Deputy Speaker, and move on now to the amendments themselves.

The principal amendments on which most of the debate has been focused are those dealing with the definition of a bereaved parent: amendments 1, 2, 12 and 14. My hon. Friends the Members for Torbay (Kevin Foster) and for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson) talked about primary care givers and grandparents. We have had a number of contributions on this matter, not only from hon. Members but from charities and individuals who have contacted me on Facebook. We had a Facebook debate on the issue, in which Nicky Clifford said that she wanted the measure to extend to grandparents when they were the child’s primary carer. Mrs Clifford felt that the grandparents had suffered a double loss when her son died. The charity Together for Short Lives said that the right to leave should be extended to legal guardians, as did the Rainbow Trust, which also mentioned foster carers. There is certainly a wide breadth of opinion on how the regulations should be set, hence the need for a consultation. The Government are consulting on these issues now, and the consultation should come to an end at 11.45 pm on 8 June. I urge all Members to make submissions to the consultation on the definition of a parent before that is set in regulations.

The other key amendments were amendments 3, 5, 20 and 23, which relate to the window during which leave can be taken. The hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) talked about the shock and disbelief that is felt when these things happen. Of course every case is entirely different, so it is absolutely right that we should be flexible. The same point was made by my hon. Friends the Members for Torbay and for Mid Dorset and North Poole. This was the principal area into which charities had an input. Faye Williams said on Facebook that her partner had been allowed two weeks leave, but that the funeral was not arranged in time within that window. Louise Wright said that her son’s inquest was in October, five months after he had passed away. Cruse Bereavement Care said that the leave entitlement should be spread over a longer period of 52 weeks. Interestingly, one of the bereaved mothers who made a submission to the consultation through Cruse stated:

“When my child was born, I was entitled to a year off, but when he died I wasn’t entitled to a day off.”

That is an excellent reason for bringing forward this Bill.

We need to take all these things into account. It is right that there should be a baseline minimum—amendment 5 would take out that minimum—but it is also right that we should look to increase it. I am certainly sympathetic to increasing it from eight weeks to a longer period of perhaps six or 12 months. I am sure that the Minister will listen to such representations. However, we also need to keep the legislation simple for reasons of administration, and for the sake of the businesses that deal with these problems.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) talked about whether the leave needed to be taken as a two-week block. This is really about HMRC’s systems, but we would expect employers to be more flexible. On the point about extending the period of pay from two weeks to four weeks, we would need to look at the costs involved. The Bill has been carefully costed, and the cost to the Treasury will be £3.2 million per annum. The taxpayer will pay for the statutory pay, but employers will pay as well. The annual cost to businesses will be around £2.6 million, and we need to take that into account.

Amendments 6, 24, 21 and 25 focus on the age limit, and we had some good contributions on this point. From a parent’s perspective, there is no difference between the grief for someone who was 18 and that for someone who was 19. I quite understand that, and we had a number of similar submissions from the charities on this point.

My hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp) mentioned this, but we need more discussion about the 24-week cut-off point between miscarriage and stillbirth, and the private Member’s Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) seeks to consider that issue. There must be a cut-off somewhere, and our friends at the Treasury certainly want to know exactly what the proposals will cost. We have already passed the money resolution, so I suggest to hon. Members that now is not the right time to try to amend the Bill in that way.

I thank hon. Members on both sides of the House for their constructive, informed and human contributions. I politely suggest that Members do not press their amendments to a Division so that we ensure that the Bill can proceed.

[Michael Tomlinson]

My hon. Friend mentioned the consultation and invited us to withdraw our amendments. Does he agree that it would be otiose—unnecessary—for us to repeat the suggestions that we have already made? This debate should be formally submitted to the consultation so that Members of Parliament do not need to write further submissions. Those involved in the consultation could simply read the Hansard reports of Second Reading, our Committee proceedings, Report and, hopefully, Third Reading.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I was pleased that my hon. Friend explained what otiose means. He is absolutely right that the Bill has been shaped as it has passed through the House. The consultation is a key part of that, and it is fair to expect that some of the Bill’s provisions will be different from those that we see today. Finally, I politely ask Members not to press their amendments to a Division and to allow the Bill to pass through the House and on to the statute book as quickly as possible so that we help more parents who suffer these terrible tragedies in their hour of greatest need.