Parental Bereavement (Leave and Pay) Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 29th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I endorse the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, and particularly thank Lucy Herd and the many other campaigners who have spent years trying to bring this legislation to and through Parliament. I also pay tribute in particular to Kevin Hollinrake and Will Quince for their determined work in another place. I know that many other MPs spoke during the passage of the Bill in the Commons who also outlined how important it was, many of them citing their personal experience. I also thank the National Bereavement Alliance, Together for Short Lives and Bliss for their briefings, which have been extremely helpful.

As with most people who have chosen to speak on this Bill, both here and in another place, I have personal experience of some of the issues. I had a series of miscarriages when I was young; my eldest son would have been 40 this year. After one of my subsequent miscarriages, not at 24 weeks but quite late on, I can remember the doctor patting me on the leg and saying, “There, there, dear, the best thing for you is to get up and go back to work tomorrow. Get over it quickly”. I watched friends cross to the other side of the street because they knew that it was yet another miscarriage. I have talked to parents who have lost their children. They find the same thing.

Child bereavement is still something that most people find very difficult to talk about. When we look at how it affects employers, it can be even worse. There can be complete ignorance about the pain that parents go through in the last few days or even months of a child’s long-term illness, or with the shock of a sudden death. Employers do not know how to react, so I am delighted with the ACAS guidance and the fact that the National Bereavement Alliance worked with ACAS to make sure that guidance is there.

The problem is that not all the employers who need to know about the guidance will know about it. Nearly 20 years ago, when I was a senior manager, I was aware of another case where the two year-old child of the employee of a young manager died of leukaemia after a very short illness, by cancer standards, of two or three months. This manager’s boss came to see her the next day to say, “We have given this parent too much paid time off. She’s got to take unpaid time off for the funeral”. The young manager concerned said, “I’m not prepared for that”, ended up having a flaming row and stood their ground. The parent was allowed paid time off. It is interesting to note that neither of the two managers is still working for that employer, whereas the bereaved parent still is.

That is part of the problem: many parents cannot explain fully the experience that they have been through. I know that your Lordships’ House will know that I been working with Nascot Lawn, a centre for children with multiple difficulties, many of whose parents know that they will not achieve adulthood, that has just been closed by the NHS. I will quote briefly from the blog of Nikki, the mother of Lennon, who died last summer, writing in that immediate aftermath of the death. Although it was expected, it was a shock. She said:

“Lennon’s bedroom remains more or less untouched. His fishbowl bed still has pride of place in the middle of the room. The medical trolley is still brimming with dressings and medical equipment. His freshly washed clothes on the dresser waiting to be put away in the drawers. All his medical emergency plans and equipment lists still fixed to the backs of doors.


I know I need to sort through all of Lennon’s belongings and clothes.


But not yet, not just yet.


Keech Hospice have been amazing. Faye has been a godsend, my fairy godmother. I went to visit the hospice to collect all of Lennon’s belongings and the memory items that the nurses had made … She took me to the Job Centre for some advice on money. She felt my pain when we left. Not only are the 10 and half years I spent caring for Lennon and working tirelessly as an unqualified”,


high dependency nurse,

“to keep my child alive, was not recognised in the eyes of the Department of Work and Pensions, but … there is nothing anyone can do to help us financially until I feel able to return to work”.

That is why, while the period of 56 days mentioned in the Bill is great, there will be times when we should look at extending it or making that period of time more flexible. This is particularly true in cases such as those referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Knight, where there has been a sudden death, and there may be an inquest or meetings with lawyers leading up to that. I hope that it will be possible to meet the Minister, and perhaps the Minister in another place dealing with the consultation, to discuss why we need to be so rigid and whether some flexibility can be built in.

I have one more point from Nikki. She wrote:

“I applied for job seekers allowance, wanting to buy myself a little extra time to grieve before returning to some form of work. Only to be told that because I hadn’t ‘worked’ in 10 years I was ineligible. Despite the fact that in those 10 years, I had worked harder and for many more hours than the average person. The fact that I had saved the government and the NHS hundreds of thousands of pounds by providing my son with hourly complex medical care counts for nothing ... You are told to man up—move on. Get a job. Pay the bills. Provide for your remaining family”.


It is clear that the benefit and support structure is lacking, especially for parent carers. One thing I hope will come out of the Government’s consultation is guidance for jobcentres and the Department for Work and Pensions on the tribulations and difficulties that many parents with child bereavement face—both those who expect a death and those who face a sudden death—because it is an experience that very few people will go through.

The National Bereavement Alliance also talks about the chance to increase up to 25 the age at which parental pay and parental leave are available. I can understand why it makes that statement, but I wonder whether there is a simpler compromise. Where a child has an education and health care plan which takes them through to 25, usually because they have a long-term disability or medical condition, we know from the system that such people are more likely than others to become bereaved parents. Perhaps we might discuss whether we could extend it for those children who already have substantial care needs and support, many of whom, as we know, will not survive much beyond their 25th year.

There is also a request that the definition of a parent be looked at. I have some sympathy with this. I was a foster carer and then became a guardian to two children whose mother died. In various forms, as a guardian I had no legal status whatever. I had status with the family courts and with the school, but there were other situations where I did not. Definitions of parents are used in other legislation that could be used here. If you are a parent or a person with those caring responsibilities, as usually defined in the family court, it seems to me that you are the person who will be dealing with the death and its aftermath. Perhaps we could look at that further.

Finally, I applaud the work that has been done with employers, but we look for a national campaign to ensure that small employers, who obviously have concerns about extra leave, understand both the rarity of these cases and the concerns of bereaved parents as they face coming back to work. The ACAS guide is a good start, and I am delighted that many bereaved parents have been working with ACAS and larger employers to get the message across.

The most important thing is that this Bill succeeds through this House and becomes legislation. I look forward to the result of the consultation and hope that the Minister feels that it will be possible to have a meeting to discuss some of these matters during the passage of the Bill.