Employment Rights Bill

Lord Harlech Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 16th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Aberdare (CB)]

My Lords, in the absence of my noble friend Lord Hampton, who added his name to this amendment but is unable to be here, I will speak in support of Amendment 100. I will be brief as the noble Baronesses, Lady Penn and Lady Lister, have already set out the case for the amendment so comprehensively and so powerfully. I am more than likely to get parental and paternal confused at some point in my speech, but I will try to avoid that. Sadly, I am well beyond the age when increased paternal leave might be relevant to me, and even grandpaternal leave would be unlikely to help.

The amendment addresses an important issue, not least when the UK has the least generous paternity leave in Europe. Many men currently lack either the option or the financial resources to take an adequate period of leave to learn parenting skills, support their partners and bond with their new children. There is no point at all in making leave available if many families cannot afford to take it.

The Government’s review into parental leave and their desire to improve the system are welcome but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, has said, the review must lead to action. We have heard evidence of the financial benefits for businesses, as well as the economy as a whole, and I will not repeat those, but in addition there are significant social benefits, including better mental health outcomes, better relationships between family members and more engaged and loyal workers. All those benefits would come at a relatively modest net cost.

The amendment starts from the Government’s own aims and sets out the action needed to achieve them through regulations to deliver a new paternal leave regime in terms of the length and rate of pay for statutory paternal leave, in line with the recommendations of the Women and Equalities Select Committee and within a clear timescale consistent with stated government goals. As we have heard, that does not pre-empt the findings of the very welcome review.

The amendment seems to represent a win for the Government, for the economy, for society and, above all, for individual families—mothers as much as fathers, and their children. I very much hope to hear a positive response from the Minister.

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 100, 101 and 102 in the name of my noble friend Lady Penn and I declare my interest as the father of a six-month old son. This package of amendments has the potential to transform the lives of families, children and fathers. Polling this year by the charities Dad Shift and Movember found that 45% of new fathers experienced multiple symptoms of depression in their child’s first year. We do not speak of this as a national mental health emergency, but it is. Fathers are not just facing financial pressure; they are being denied time to bond with their children, to adjust to fatherhood and to share care equally with their partners. It can be deeply isolating.

I think of my own experiences as a new father. Mother and child should rightly be the priority for healthcare professionals. I am not saying that fathers should be the priority, but they should not be seen as the enemy either. Not once on any visits to or from midwives or community caregivers did anyone ask how I was coping. What do fathers say would make the biggest difference? Not counselling, not hotlines, but time. Some 82% of surveyed fathers say the single most effective thing the Government could do to improve their mental health is to increase paid and protected paternity leave.

Longer paternity leave is associated with better mental health in fathers. Studies show that fathers who are present from the earliest days develop deeper emotional bonds with their children and become more engaged parents over the long term. As we have heard, this disparity does not hurt just fathers; it hurts mothers too. Evidence confirms that countries with higher levels of paternity leave experience lower levels of maternal postnatal depression. When fathers share the load, mothers recover more fully, return to work more easily and experience fewer long-term career penalties. The current disparity hurts children. A 2025 study in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine found that children of fathers with poor mental health are more likely to develop behavioural problems at school. So, this is a childhood developmental issue, a school issue, and ultimately a public spending issue.

We have heard the arguments that this is pro-business, so I will not repeat them now in the interest of time, but the mental health crisis among men is real. Suicide remains the leading cause of death for men under 50 in the UK. We do not know how many of those male deaths by suicide involve fathers, because the ONS does not collect that data. My question for the Minister is: will this data be collected as part of the review? If we are serious about tackling the male suicide epidemic—not just treating it but preventing it—this is one of the most direct and evidence-based tools at our disposal. Fatherhood should not begin in burnout and guilt; it should begin with time, presence and love. I urge noble Lords to support these amendments.

[Lord Jones of Penybont (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 100. I was born in 1967. My mother received a less than generous 12 weeks of paid maternity leave. I was born with a condition that required me to have physiotherapy twice a day every day for the first two years of my life. To save me having to go to the hospital every single day, my father volunteered to be trained in that physiotherapy, and he was not entitled to time off to do that. He did it anyway and he is the reason why I am able to stand straight in this Chamber today. Paternity leave would have been thought of as some kind of dangerous idea in those days, no doubt.

When our children arrived at the beginning of this century, my wife got extended leave—paid leave of course. I was a young and ambitious Minister at the time, keen to please my then boss, the First Minister, so I took no leave at all. Even then, there was no talk of paternity leave; you were expected to get on with it. I missed out on the early months of my children’s life in our family—something they, as teenagers, often reminded me of, usually asking for money at the same time.

I cannot support the amendment because it is too prescriptive, in my view, but it seeks to address important issues. I ask my noble friend the Minister to consider these three questions in her response. I very much welcome the review the Government have announced, and we know that its timescale will be some 18 months. When is the review due to start? Will any documentation be published beforehand so we are able to see the remit and terms of reference of that review? Will those documents be laid before Parliament? We are a long way behind the European norm when it comes to paternity leave. We owe it to so many families up and down the length and breadth of this land to continue to address this issue, and I look forward to the response from my noble friend the Minister.