Baby Leave for Members of Parliament

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

I am not sure how to follow that entertaining speech from the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq). It is an honour to take part in this debate. I pay tribute to the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) and the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) for securing it. For me, this is what we at home like to call a wee treat. About 20 years ago, I interviewed the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham, who had just become a member of the new Labour Government. I asked her how she planned to change the working landscape for families in this country. I had just finished my maternity leave at the BBC, and I have to say that the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) is right: even back in those dark distant days of the past, the BBC was still able to put out news bulletins even though I was no longer there. Employers will find a way.

The working landscape for families has changed remarkably since 1997. Children who were born then and who are now becoming parents can benefit from a whole raft of legislation that makes it easier for them to be with their partner and their child and to bond as a family immediately after the child is born—except of course if they are a Member of Parliament. It seems ridiculous that we in this place should be so far behind the very people that we are here to represent and to help. I have to say that, like the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), I have no intention of having another child. I have found this debate moving and entertaining at times, but it is also been frankly horrifying, and if I was in any doubt before, I am now certain that I will be not be having another.

The gender balance in this House has changed completely and, as we have heard, there are now 200 women MPs. Many of them are young enough to be starting or expanding their family, and many of our male colleagues are doing the same. For the many of us who have constituencies many hundreds of miles away, we must bear in mind that that will not mean being at home for an hour or two late at night or travelling by high-speed train with a small child, although that must be difficult; it will mean being away for a week at a time and being separated from a child at the most important time of their life. We cannot be there to help our partners through the sort of ordeals that we have heard about today, which some of the younger male Members have already been through. We should not be asking parents to choose between voting and providing that support when an alternative is already there. In fact, as we have heard, it was there in the 19th century. It is there every time we go to the ballot box in the form of a proxy vote—someone can go to exercise our democratic right for us—and we should not exclude ourselves from that possibility.

All the changes that have come about in the past 20 to 30 years—the Maternity and Parental Leave etc. Regulations 1999, the Work and Families Act 2006, the Children and Families Act 2014, the Equality Act 2010—had the aim of creating a level playing field, so that young women are not judged when going for a job on whether they might be going on maternity leave, and young men, who would not present the same problem, can also take baby leave. However, we do not seem to have taken it into account that local parties might face the same dilemma when selecting candidates for this House. If local party members choose the young women, who is perhaps married and about to start a family, they will lose her from the House. If they choose the young man, they may think that they would not. We are making it difficult for ourselves to pursue the stated goal of making this place more representative of the country.

We need more young women and young men. We need more people from every section of society. By making a simple change, we can make it easier to encourage young people who are about to start families to think that becoming an MP might just be possible and that they will be able to continue to represent the people whom they want to represent. They will be able to say, “When I have my child, I can have someone else vote for me,” or, “When my partner has a child or when we adopt a child, someone else can vote for me.” It is the simplest thing, and yet we have not done it.

If we are to be truly representative, we have to represent all our constituents, but we are falling short of that. We have the opportunity to put that last piece of the jigsaw in place and make it possible to vote by proxy. It seems ridiculous that that could be done in the 19th century and that, in the 21st century, we are even asking the question.