Shared Parental Leave and Pay (Bereavement) Bill

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 26th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

I pay tribute to the cross-party efforts led by my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Darren Henry) and the hon. Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) to correct an injustice for parents dealing with the challenges of losing their partner and gaining a child and then not qualifying for child leave or pay. They may even risk losing their livelihood. I pay particular tribute to individual campaigners such as the constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe, Aaron Horsey, who had the courage and conviction to take up the cause on behalf of others while having to deal with the loss of Bernadette and bringing up his son Tim.

The backdrop to this important Bill—how we as a society handle bereavement—needs some attention. Death and grief are too often taboos that society struggles to handle, but all our lives will be affected by bereavement at some point, whatever our age, background, religion or belief. We must do more to provide support for those who are bereaved and, indeed, those who are facing bereavement.

As a Christian, I recall Zechariah 7:10 in the Bible:

“oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor”.

Much debate, attention and action is directed to helping support the poor, the stranger and the fatherless, but perhaps less attention and action is given to the widow or the widower. I recall a number of young widowers known to me—such as Guy Hordern—who have had to face bereavement while raising small children without their wife and the mother alongside them, and then also having to face insecurity of employment.

I also pay tribute to the UK Commission on Bereavement and its 2022 report, “Bereavement is everyone’s business”. Bishops are not always in politicians’ good books, as the debate in the other place this week has demonstrated, but there are times for praise, and I want to praise the noble Lord Bishop of London, the chair of the commission. She said:

“All of us will experience grief through the course of our lives. It is a truly universal human experience, part and parcel of being mortal. And as with every aspect of life, we all experience it differently.”

She continued:

“The pandemic…had a profound effect on how those affected have experienced bereavement. Many people have been unable to see family and friends and…had limited access to formal support after their loved one died. Feeling alone in their grief due to lockdown or having to shield or self-isolate has had a devastating impact. At the same time, the pandemic has also spotlighted this universal human experience and presented an important opportunity to consider how well equipped we are”—

or perhaps are not—

“to support people through a bereavement and how we should work together to improve that support both now and in the future.”

In that context, the UK Commission on Bereavement was founded, bringing together 16 commissioners and an advisory group.

Through the commission’s work, taking detailed written and oral evidence from well over 1,000 people, it has conducted one of the largest ever consultations of bereaved people and professionals working with them. The commission saw time and again that we need to do more

“as a whole society to support all those affected by bereavement.”

However, ongoing taboos around grief and uncertainty about how to help inhibit support throughout our communities, in schools, colleges and workplaces, even among those whose job puts them in contact with bereaved people every day.

The report states:

“For those who need it, there are significant challenges to accessing formal emotional support. There’s not enough of it, it’s not accessible to all who need it, and certain groups in society are particularly poorly served. However, in addition to significant shortcomings in the provision of emotional support, people affected by bereavement often find it hard to get the support that they need with the ‘practical’ challenges they face day-to-day—from registering a death to accessing adequate financial support. Overall, many people are not getting the right support at the right time, with potentially serious consequences in all areas, from health and wellbeing to education and employment and even long term economic outcomes. We must seize the opportunity to change this for the better”.

This Bill is such an opportunity.

We must not lose sight of the fact that all our lives will be touched by bereavement. It is incumbent upon us all to work together to improve the experiences of bereaved people. The commission’s report set out clear recommendations for achieving that. The UK Government should establish and deliver a cross-departmental strategy for bereavement, as I believe the commission recommended.

By making grief taboo, fearing it and locking it away, we make it all the harder to comprehend and to support each other through it. We make it harder for people to access the help they need, be it simple flexibility from an employer, help with funeral costs or access to specialist bereavement support services. It is important that we do all we can to support those who suffer in this way.

Much in that report was not directly related to the Bill, so I will not test Mr Speaker’s patience further. Bereavement can often trigger financial insecurity and poverty. Many people who experience bereavement are at particular risk of financial hardship and changes to their material circumstances and living conditions. That is especially the case for bereaved parents or spouses, where the bereavement commonly results in the loss of household income, and sometimes even in the bereaved person or family losing their home. Such pressures add significantly to the stress already experienced. Overall, people are not getting the right support they need. A parent needs particular support in the early days, weeks and months with their child, and even more so when they have lost a partner.

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

The hon. Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) made an incredibly touching speech. I think everyone in the House supports the Bill. My hon. Friend has been a leader in small businesses. On the fairly made point by the hon. Member for Ogmore on shared parental leave, how does my hon. Friend think small employers should approach these issues?

[Fiona Bruce]

For many years in my previous life I was a probate solicitor, so many bereaved people came to see me. There is real room for compassion when employers are faced with someone who has recently been bereaved. We all need to look at what we can do to support them. Other employees are probably more than willing to chip in and give the support that they can, which would be especially needed in a small business. That is also why, for many years, I have championed family hubs. I am delighted that Department for Education family hubs and start for life funding has enabled 75 family hubs to open and provide vital services for families with younger children. We need to ensure the hubs enable bereavement counselling and emotional and relational support for widowed parents, especially after tragic and traumatic loss in childbirth.

When enacted, the Bill will plug a vital gap in shared parental leave and pay for those who have not completed the six months of continuous service with an employer necessary to qualify. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have served their constituents and us well by shining a light on this issue and making it our business to sort it out. This Bill sends a wider message that bereavement is everyone’s business.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Hollinrake]

My hon. Friend has great experience, and it is great to hear from people with experience at the sharp end of business. It is not an easy place to be. I had a fairly long business career myself for 30 years before politics, and we know that people are our most precious assets. It is good business to look after our workforce, not only because of the individuals concerned and the loyalty that brings, but because of the loyalty of other members of the team when they see how someone is treating their staff. It is important to recognise that what we are legislating for is not a ceiling, but a floor. It is a minimum period of leave that people can be offered, and of course the minimum level of pay. Clearly an employer can pay more than that expected by law, and I know that many employers do so. I understand that Mr Horsey was well treated by his employer. That illustrates that most employers are good employers, and we in the House should always recognise that when we are legislating. We want a labour market that promotes competition and choice, so that consumers have confidence in markets, and businesses compete on a level playing field.

Turning to the specific points, the hon. Member for Ogmore raised a point about the numbers of people affected. Maternal deaths—the number of people who pass away during pregnancy or within 42 days of that—are around 290, as he said. Some will have continuity of service requirements. We therefore think that this legislation will benefit just under 50 people a year. That is our best guesstimate, because there are so many different moving parts, but that is the kind of number we are talking about. That is not a huge number, but the legislation is very important to those affected by it.

I noted the hon. Member’s points principally about pay. It is a first step on the road, but it is a very important step, and future Governments—of whatever colour they may be—may go further. He also raised the complexity and take-up of shared parental leave. Take-up is in line with estimates and has doubled over the past few years. In July 2021, the shared parental leave tool was deployed. The tool enables parents to check their eligibility and plan their leave, and it has been well received. I think that also covers the point raised by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Harrow West.

The hon. Member for Ogmore also asked why parents with other employment statuses, such as the self-employed, are not entitled to this support. The Government’s support is focused on employed parents, as they do not generally have the same level of flexibility and autonomy over how and when they work as self-employed parents. Employees have a contractual requirement to work regular hours and have an employer who has control over when they work, where they work and how their work is done. Due to that, employees have the greatest level of employment protections, to balance the lack of flexibility that their employment type provides in other ways.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North talked in his intervention and his speech about the burdens on business. Obviously, all legislation should include an impact assessment, including a financial impact assessment on business. The impact assessment result was de minimis—I think that is below £5 million, which is not a significant impact. We therefore do not think that the changes will create a significant burden on businesses. We have engaged with business representative organisations and payroll professionals throughout the policy development of these changes. They have responded positively and understand how the changes will increase flexibility for families. We are working with His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to plan communications with businesses to ensure that they fully understand the new arrangements, and we will continue to engage with them while we finalise guidance to ensure the smooth introduction of these changes.

My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton rightly talked about the UK Commission on Bereavement and the important work that it does. She also referred to a cross-departmental bereavement strategy, which may include bereavement counselling for people in key situations. That is a little outside my remit, but she may continue to press for that across Government.

[Fiona Bruce]

I would indeed support that. Not many people want to talk about bereavement—certainly not as death approaches—but there is a well understood concept, particularly in hospices, of such a thing as a good death, where families are encouraged to get together to talk, including with the person whose life on this earth is coming to an end, about how issues may be best resolved. Those might be differences that have occurred over many years, but can also be practical issues surrounding the death, where involving everyone is a good thing. Such work has a lot to commend it.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I thank my hon. Friend for those points. As the hon. Member for Ogmore stated, bereavement affects all of us. Society is probably more open than it was when I was a young child, and I think we are now better at dealing with these matters and getting them out in the open. There are good ways to deal with bereavement—better ways to deal with it than we experienced in the past—and some of the counselling offered by experts must be a good thing. We certainly had a lot of engagement on that during our consideration of the Parental Bereavement (Leave and Pay) Act 2018, which I dealt with. That obviously covers the loss of a child, and in this context there is nothing more devastating than the death of a child.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe again on getting to where he has got with this legislation. I know he would have loved to have taken it through the House himself, but these things are a team effort. He understandably asked for an explanation as to why the entitlement will not include pay. In response, I flag that no statutory parental leave entitlement, including maternity leave, has pay available from an employee’s first day in a new job. That is because, apart from small businesses, employers are required to contribute towards the cost of statutory parental pay, as well as meeting the costs and burdens associated with their employee’s absence from work and the administration around that. I think he would accept that this legislation is a floor, not a ceiling, and that good employers will go further and in some cases much further than the legislation.

I thank the hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) for his comments. I am pleased he supports this legislation. Understandably, he talks about Northern Ireland, and my officials in the Box today have rightly had conversations with their counterparts in Northern Ireland, and we are keen to continue those discussions. Clearly employment law is a devolved matter for Northern Ireland.