Business of the House

Chris Heaton-Harris Excerpts

Thursday 14th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

Of course we can, if his party chooses it as the subject for an Opposition day. I have announced two Opposition days for the next two weeks. The subject has not been announced for the second half of the debate next week. I am sure that the shadow Leader of the House will have heard the hon. Gentleman’s request, which would have been better directed to her than to me. The Government are anxious to see whether there is a better way of measuring child poverty than the way we have at the moment, which has a number of perverse consequences, one of which is that in a recession child poverty rates appear to improve because they are measured in relation to median incomes.

[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

Will the Leader of the House allow us a debate in Government time on stillbirth certification? I have been after a Westminster Hall debate on this subject for some time. Such a certificate would help parents who have a stillbirth to come to terms with the death of their child, and give recognition to the fact that the birth has taken place. Following a previous question in business questions, the Leader of the House kindly got a letter sent to me from the Department of Health. It seems that the only reason we maintain the current system of stillbirth certification is to help the Department of Health and other Departments in the collection of statistics.