Shared Parental Leave and Pay (Bereavement) Bill

Debate between Chris Elmore and Kevin Hollinrake

Committee stage
Wednesday 20th March 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Kevin Hollinrake]

My hon. Friend makes some very strong and worthwhile points, and I thank her for those.

To conclude, I would like to thank the Committee members for their valuable contributions. This Bill is an important extension of support and protection for parents facing one of the most challenging situations of their lives. The Government take pride in endorsing this private Member’s Bill, aligning our efforts with an unwavering commitment to bolstering workers’ support and to cultivating a high-skilled, high-productivity, high-wage economy.

I thank all hon. Members, but I particularly thank my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe and the hon. Member for Ogmore for working with me to develop this Bill into a piece of legislation that will work effectively for parents and businesses alike. I look forward to working with them during the future stages of the Bill.

[Chris Elmore]

I start by thanking the Minister most sincerely. There is a process with private Members’ Bills —perhaps I am issuing state secrets from the Government and Opposition Whips Offices—where handout Bills are worked through to ensure that private Members’ Bills can be delivered. This was not one of those Bills. I say this sincerely: the Minister, and indeed his officials, have been incredibly constructive in working with me to ensure that we do not let the perfect get in the way of the good, as the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands—I call her my right hon. Friend—says a lot in her Procedure Committee work, although I do not think that she invented the phrase. This Bill is that; we have made a significant step in the right direction, and, throughout the course of employment rights legislation, these things often started as leave, and then moved to the next step, and so on and so forth. Indeed, I do not think that shared parental leave was in legislation until the Cameron Administration, and I think that paternity leave was invented by the Blair Administration. These things move and change throughout history, regardless of party politics.

That brings me to my broader point. I pay tribute again to the hon. Member for Broxtowe, because he has been a huge advocate for his constituents, but he has also been very good in lobbying me—a skill in itself—to convince me to take on the Bill. However, as I said on Second Reading, I do not want this Bill to help many people, because the whole point of it is to support people in their darkest hour, and nobody—Conservative, Labour, Scottish National party or Plaid Cymru—would want anybody to face this horror: the joy of being a parent and the unimaginable loss of losing a partner. Being a parent should be nothing but joy—and exhaustion, particularly when they are first born. It should not be about just blind grief. I am trying to understand how that feels, but I cannot imagine it, and I hope that I never have to face it. The numbers are small—and thank God for that—and I hope that they always remain small.

I would like to place on the record, although I mentioned them briefly, the Minister’s officials. I have had an insight into the work of the civil service over the past few weeks, and all I can say is that I am hugely impressed by it. The work that they have done has been wonderful. I also thank my staff, particularly my researcher, Alex Williams, who has spent many an hour working through this Bill, including with civil servants—I thank him for that. It is always nice to get one’s staff in the Hansard records, as it is not always something that we manage to do.

I thank all Members for their contributions. It is right to say that this House works best when it works cross party. These are the things that are not seen. This is genuinely a Government and Opposition Bill, and that is how these Bills should be; they should be about cross-party working as often as we can.

To move to a technical point, I reiterate the importance of this piece of legislation, and I hope that as we move to our decisions, under your stewardship, Mr Paisley, we will get the noes and ayes in the correct place—we will see how this works out. I hope that the Bill can proceed successfully to the next stage, to Report and Third Reading. It is my intention to vote against clause 1; I understand the procedural reasons for that. Good luck, Mr Paisley.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chris Elmore and Kevin Hollinrake

Thursday 9th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

The Minister will know that there are no Metro Mayors in Wales, but there are city deals and leaders that link across the south-west of England into Bristol and across the south Wales belt. Will the Minister set out what he is doing to work with local government leaders in Wales to ensure that investment is brought into Welsh constituencies as well as those throughout England?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We are pleased that across York and North Yorkshire we are about to get our own Metro Mayor; I am sure he is working hard to bring that kind of governance to his area too, because it clearly delivers opportunity right across the country. As he knows, the FDI stock in the UK is worth £2 trillion, which is the second highest amount in the world. I am sure the opportunities would be beneficial to the hon. Gentleman’s constituents should he strike that kind of deal.