Paternity Leave (Bereavement) Bill

Chris Elmore Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 26th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

I take this opportunity to thank all those who have been involved in the Bill’s journey up to this point, particularly Widowed and Young, the TUC and Gingerbread. Clerks do not often receive praise in the House, but I thank Anne-Marie Griffiths, the Clerk of private Members’ Bills, who has done sterling work to support me in progressing this Bill.

From the outset, as I said on Second Reading, the Bill’s ambition has been to help as few people as possible. Nobody wants a mother to die in childbirth, leaving a partner behind. The grief is unimaginable, and a person does not have to be a parent to understand the horror for anyone who is left behind.

I remind colleagues that the main purpose of the Bill is to introduce a much-needed right to leave for bereaved partners from the first day of their employment. Such a provision will ensure that employed parents have time, support and security in cases where their partner, and the primary caregiver of their child, has died in the most tragic of circumstances.

Although the number of people who find themselves in this situation is mercifully low—in the UK, there are around 180 maternal deaths a year within 12 months of childbirth—it is crucial that parents in this position can take time away from work to care for their child, without needing to rely solely on the good will of their employer. I am pleased that the Bill will remedy this gap in the law.

As I explained on Second Reading, it was necessary to make significant amendments in Committee, so a motion for an instruction was passed to allow for the tabling of amendments that would have otherwise been out of scope. The changes will ensure that the Bill is not only well intentioned but is effective in achieving my overall ambition.

I will now summarise the new structure of the Bill. First, it was amended to reflect that paternity leave, rather than shared parental leave, will be used as the vehicle to deliver the entitlement. For a bereaved partner to qualify for shared parental leave, the deceased parent must have had a recent history of employment that met a strict set of requirements. If the deceased parent did not have such a history, such as in the case of a stay-at-home mum, there would be no shared parental leave entitlement for the surviving parent to access, which defeats my Bill’s objectives. By contrast, paternity leave is not dependent on any other entitlement. Opting for that approach means that more parents will be eligible.

1 make it clear that, although the entitlement uses the paternity leave framework, it will specifically provide for bereaved fathers and partners. It will also include provisions that will only apply to them in these particularly heartbreaking circumstances. The intention is that a bereaved father or partner will have 52 weeks of leave available during the first year of their child’s life, from the day on which the mother or primary adopter of the child has tragically died. That ensures that they can act as the primary caregiver for this crucial first year, and can focus all their attention on their newborn child.

Secondly, the Bill was amended to enable regulations to be made concerning the eligibility of adoptive and surrogacy parents for this entitlement. Once made, the regulations will allow the surviving parents of adopted children and of children born through surrogacy arrangements to be included. As a result, we will be able to offer the benefit of this entitlement to a wider range of parents than was possible when the Bill was first conceived earlier in the year.

Thirdly, the Bill removes the requirement for a continuity of service provision, so that employed parents who find themselves in the tragic situation of losing a partner at the same time as becoming a new parent can take leave when it is needed, and it will therefore be available to take on the first day of employment. Other amendments that were made will remove constraints on bereaved partners, enabling them to access the entitlement. For example, the Bill removes the requirement that a parent who has taken shared parental leave cannot then take paternity leave. That gives the Secretary of State the power to provide that a parent who has taken shared parental leave before the death of their partner can still take paternity leave in such circumstances.

The new Bill also allows provision to be made for circumstances in which the child also dies. That too expands on what the original Bill was going to achieve. It gives the regulations the flexibility in such cases to allow the employee to remain on paternity leave for a period, even though they would not be taking the leave for the required purpose of supporting the mother or caring for the child. I think that for any Member in the House losing a partner would cause an unimaginable sense of grief in which to raise a baby. As for the idea of losing a baby—I speak as a father—being there to support your wife or partner, and being able to manage that grief as best you can in the knowledge that you have a job to go back to, will at least provide a tiny piece of reassurance while you deal with the most unimaginable sense of loss, which none of us would ever want to experience. I am so pleased that the Minister was able to bring about that change in Committee.

The new Bill introduces two new powers, the first of which provides the ability to create, through regulations, enhanced redundancy protection for bereaved employees when they return from extended paternity leave. The second power enables regulations to be made to allow bereaved parents to have “keep in touch” days during their extended paternity leave, enabling employees to work for their employer for a limited number of days without their right to paternity leave being affected. While someone is looking after a child on their own, hopefully with the support of their family, having that option to slowly go back to work for a certain number of days will be an important part of, not recovering—I do not think anyone would recover from that scenario—but at least learning to cope with and manage the situation.

Finally, the Bill was amended in Committee to remove an additional and broad Henry VIII power which would have enabled it to amend any Act of Parliament previously passed. As most Members will know, I am an Opposition Whip, but I suspect that whether my party is in government or in opposition it is never a good idea to give the Opposition Whips Office control of all Government legislation, so I think most Members will be quite pleased that that power has been removed and will not appear in any future Bill. I think it will be viewed as a positive step.

I will say more about the contribution from the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Darren Henry) when I speak at the end of the debate, but the key for me is that the Bill has come about through genuine cross-party work and consensus. I would go as far as to say that there is no politics in bereavement. On Second Reading, when the Chairman of Ways and Means was in the Chair, I said that one of the surprising aspects of politicians was that we were all human—which is not always the perception of the broader public. I say that in jest, of course, but I say it for a purpose. We all grieve, and we all feel, in exactly the same way. At the time of the ballot, the hon. Member for Broxtowe came to me and said, “Would you look at this?”, and I did. It is through his work some two years ago that I am here today, and pleased to be here, presenting what I accept is a different Bill, but a Bill that is nevertheless the starting point of bringing about changes that I think are needed. It is welcome that we are able to do this on a genuinely cross-party basis.

I want to make one final point. The Minister and I have worked together over my entire eight years in the House, and he has been nothing but constructive. His officials have been super in engaging with my small office—my team of one researcher, as lots of MPs have —in getting the Bill to this point. It has been not only an easy process to work with the Minister and his officials but an important one.

All being well, when the Bill receives Royal Assent it will help people in their darkest hour. When the unimaginable sense of joy at being a parent becomes unimaginable grief at losing the person you were expecting to do that job with—being a parent is a job of work in every sense—and having to do that on your own, this legislation will mitigate the risks and insecurity that go with that. I pay warm tribute and express my gratitude to the Minister for the way in which he has conducted himself, as he always does, with great courtesy, and for the access he has given me to his officials to ensure we can deliver this small but important change to the law.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Elmore]

With the leave of the House, I thank all Members who have spoken in this debate, including the hon. Members for Hyndburn (Sara Britcliffe) and for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton). The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South has consistently supported the Bill, and I am grateful to him for always being here when the Bill was debated on the Floor of the House.

I said at the beginning that I wanted to thank the organisations that have supported the Bill and I do so again. The support of organisations such as Gingerbread, the Fawcett Society and the Childhood Bereavement Network has been invaluable not just in making sure that the Bill works for parents but in giving living examples of people who are left behind to raise a child. I have had several conversations with bereaved parents, some of whom were bereaved years and years ago, who have said what a difference this legislation would have made had it existed at the time. Nobody expects to lose their partner in childbirth—it is unimaginable in that sense—but now they are able to reflect on it in those terms.

I could not conclude without paying tribute to the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Darren Henry). He was instrumental in convincing an Opposition Whip to take on his Bill, and I said at the time that that was quite an achievement. But we are actually here today because of Aaron, Bernadette and Tim. I wish we were not, in truth, but we are, and that is because of people such as Aaron and their dogged determination to convince their MPs that the law could be changed.

I pay tribute to the officials again, and to the hon. Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris), who is instrumental in ensuring that so many Bills are passed every sitting Friday, week after week. I can recall days when no private Member’s Bills were passed, Mr Deputy Speaker, under a previous Whip for PMBs, and that was the sport of the Friday. These days, many pass with good cause and I am so pleased that Members have supported the Bill’s progress to the other place. I look forward to it gaining consent from there and from His Majesty the King.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Congratulations, Mr Elmore, and our sincerest best wishes and thanks to Aaron and Tim.