Children and Families Bill

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

Wednesday 20th November 2013 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

267D: After Clause 97, insert the following new Clause—
“Parental bereavement leave
In the Employment Rights Act 1996, after section 57A there is inserted—“57AA Parental bereavement leave
(1) The Secretary of State must make regulations entitling an employee who satisfies specified conditions—
(a) as to duration of employment, and(b) as to relationship with a child,to be absent from work on leave under this section in consequence of the death of a child.(2) Regulations under subsection (1) shall secure that, where an employee has a right to leave under this section, he or she is entitled to a leave period of at least 2 weeks.
(3) Regulations under subsection (1) shall secure that an employee who exercises his or her right under subsection (1)—
(a) is entitled, for such purposes and to such extent as may be prescribed, to the benefit of the terms and conditions of employment which would have applied if he or she had not been absent,(b) is bound, for such purposes and to such extent as may be prescribed, by any obligations arising under those terms and conditions (except in so far as they are inconsistent with subsection (1)), and(c) is entitled to return from leave to a job of a prescribed kind.(4) In subsection (3)(a) “terms and conditions of employment” includes—
(a) matters connected with an employee’s employment whether or not they arise under his or her contract of employment; and(b) terms and conditions about remuneration.””

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 267D, which would add a new clause after Clause 97, is about parental bereavement leave. The amendment seeks to give the Secretary of State a power to make regulations entitling an employee to be absent from work on leave as a consequence of the death of their child.

It may come as a surprise to many that there is no statutory entitlement to such bereavement leave, but that is the reality. The other elements of the proposed new clause are there for your Lordships to read. The current legal position, for those who do not know it, is that at present parents may be entitled to time off for dependants—there is a legal right to unpaid leave to cope with family emergencies, to which some reference has been made. There is no upper limit to the amount of time specified. It should be “reasonable” and should be only the amount that is sufficient to deal with the situation. The government guidance says:

“There is no set amount of time allowed to deal with an unexpected event involving a dependant—it will vary depending on what the event is … In most cases, one or two days should be sufficient to deal with the problem”.

Clearly the bereavement of a child is a problem that would need more than one or two days. Everyone’s grief is different, so quantifying this is slightly challenging, but I contend that we need to give everyone some certainty that they are entitled to a minimum amount of leave on a paid basis. In my mind, that is two weeks, which I will talk about in a moment.

Having said all that, I also want to pay tribute to Lucy Herd, who I first met two and a half years ago when recording an edition of “The Politics Show” in the BBC’s Southampton studio—occasionally, appearing on these shows does some good. Lucy, who I talked about in my contribution at Second Reading, suffered the loss of her child, Jack, in an accident in the garden. He drowned in their garden pond. Her husband, who at the time was in Australia, was given the opportunity to fly back. Obviously it takes a while to fly from Australia to Cumbria, but he was not able to stay around for very long because his employer needed him back at work within a week. As a result of that experience, Lucy started campaigning, supported by the Lullaby Trust, Bliss, Cruse, Child Bereavement UK, the Childhood Bereavement Network and others. She has discovered that hers is not an isolated example of people suffering from unsympathetic employers. I think the vast majority of employers are reasonable, but clearly there are examples where some are not. I am grateful to the Minister for meeting Lucy last month to discuss this, and to my noble friend Lord Stevenson for accompanying her. Unfortunately, because of my caring responsibilities—I listened to the debate on the previous amendment with care—I was not able to attend.

Recently, in the course of her campaign, Lucy put up a petition on the Change.org site. I looked through the comments that people are allowed to leave as they sign these petitions. There are many moving comments, two of which really stood out as examples that demonstrate that this is not an isolated case. The first was from Karen from Birmingham, who said:

“I got only 6 days compassionate leave when my 6 year old daughter died. A day for every year she lived. Disgusting! And that was the ‘caring’ NHS!”.

The NHS was her employer. Also from Birmingham was Ian, who said:

“I lost my daughter Megan on the 13th September 2010. She had a brain tumour. The work (the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham) gave me 6 days companionate leave which was good I thought then told me to go off sick until my grieving eased. When I returned 4 weeks later I was called to a meeting with my manager and the personnel department and given a written notice for being off after my daughter’s death”.

That is how in some cases the NHS might treat people who are suffering in this circumstance.

I contend that this is not an isolated case. I was pleased today, following Prime Minister’s Questions in the other place, to hear that this was raised by Tom Harris MP, who asked the Prime Minister whether or not he would commit to amending the Employment Rights Act 1996 to at last give British parents the legal right, and the time, to grieve. I was pleased at the Prime Minister’s response:

“The hon. Gentleman raises an important issue, and I am happy to look at that, having suffered that experience myself. As a Member of Parliament, it is possible to take a little bit of time to stand back and come to terms with what has happened, because colleagues and the people who help us are ready to step in and do what they can. He has raised an important point; let me look at it and get back to him”.

So the Prime Minister gives us some encouragement. As I understand it, he took two weeks’ bereavement leave. In informal conversations, the CBI, which does not have a formal policy on this, has suggested that two weeks’ paid leave might be reasonable.

Bliss, the charity that campaigns,

“for babies born too soon, too small, too sick”,

as its strapline says, has also been in touch and is strongly supportive of this amendment. Many people think that for children who are stillborn, who die in a cot death or who die early on in their lives, maternity leave can be used, so that this is not such an issue. Bliss has said to me that there are emotional reasons why parents might feel more comfortable taking bereavement leave rather than maternity or paternity leave, because it is a focused recognition of their loss. Removed from the emotional associations of parental leave without a child, they can feel more able to take the leave that they need. Ensuring that they are entitled to bereavement leave would also help them, when dealing with employers and other outside agencies, to be clear about their situation and ensure that they get the appropriate support. Although Bliss has sent me some bad examples, it has also sent me some very good examples of how employers can work sympathetically with people who have been through this extraordinary trauma.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

My Lords, I shall be very brief because I know that the noble Lord, Lord Knight, should be speaking elsewhere at this minute, I believe.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

No, I am fine.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

I support the amendment. I work with an organisation for children who are born with half a heart. Some of them therefore die but, luckily, more live now than did in the past. The variety of responses from employers to those bereaved families is extraordinary; I shall not go into examples because of the timeframe. The Minister might well say that we need a change in culture, as indeed we do, but one way of achieving that is by having something like this on the statute book. I therefore support the noble Lord.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, I am grateful to everyone who has spoken in this brief debate, and to the Minister for the sensitive way in which he has responded. We can all agree on what we think employers should do. We can agree that employers should have a policy so that, if these tragic things were to happen to a member of staff, they would have tried to anticipate how best to deal with it. We can agree that parents are best placed to make some of those judgments for themselves. However, “reasonable” has a very wide interpretation. We should use this opportunity to narrow that interpretation. I am therefore grateful to the Minister for announcing that he will bring forward concrete proposals about a timetable on Report. We shall certainly return to this issue then, in part to allow him to do so. In the mean time, if he wants to work with me on his own amendment then I would certainly wish to do that.

I remind him that this amendment seeks to give him powers. He could then use his mechanism of a concrete proposal and a timetable to work out how he should consult best to use those powers. Between now and Report, working with my friend Tom Harris in the other place, we shall liaise with the Prime Minister’s office to see how he reflects on this issue. I hope that we can come away with as happy a result out of these sorts of tragic circumstances as possible. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 267D withdrawn.