Prayers

Debate between Gareth Thomas and James Daly

Friday 26th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the House sit in private.

Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 163) and negatived.

[Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I understand that overnight, Ministers have briefed out that they are pausing negotiations with Canada over an updated free trade agreement. While there may be good negotiating reasons, and particularly good agricultural reasons, for doing so, there are implications if the pause in negotiations means that there is no agreement to roll over an existing agreement on rules of origin on manufactured goods for exports to Canada. That could, for example, make British cars and other manufactured goods more expensive in Canadian markets.

Given that the Government’s record on economic growth is so poor, and their record on trade negotiations is also poor, can the Speaker tell the House whether Ministers are going to make a statement to set out urgently why that pause is taking place and how the cliff edge on rules of origin will be handled?

Shared Parental Leave and Pay (Bereavement) Bill

Debate between Gareth Thomas and James Daly

2nd reading
Friday 26th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bury North (James Daly), who made some important points to which I will return. At the outset of my speech, however, I will take the opportunity to praise my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore). He already has a reputation as an impressive and skilful operator in the House, and the way he presented his Bill today will only add to that reputation. Labour Members want his Bill to make progress today, and perhaps to open up a broader debate about employment rights.

Having taken through a private Member’s Bill a long time ago, I know just how much work it takes to get such legislation through. The way my hon. Friend appears to have secured support across the House for the Bill to make progress today is certainly encouraging. The Bill is important because of the case the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Darren Henry) has raised many times in this place, and again today, which does him credit. I believe he has raised the case in Parliament at least three times previously—in a 10-minute rule Bill, in a question to the Prime Minister, and in an Adjournment debate in December. I congratulate him on taking up from his constituency advice surgery the case of Aaron Horsey and pursuing it as he has.

I share my hon. Friend’s opinion that the situation Mr Horsey found himself in was truly awful. It certainly was not right that in those circumstances Mr Horsey was not entitled to any parental leave. Although he was clearly lucky in his employer, to whom we should give credit, it is right that we begin to close the loophole in the law that Mr Horsey’s case has exposed. Obviously that cannot bring Mr Horsey’s partner Bernadette back—and we pay tribute to and remember her today as well—but, although this is outside the scope of the Bill, her passing is a reminder of the need to keep maternal mortality at the forefront of our minds.

The Bill gives us a chance to consider the almost unimaginable grief of losing a partner who has just given birth to a new-born baby. It is clearly wrong to expect the other partner to bring up the baby alone while being worried about their employment status, and that needs to be resolved. Let me say again that I welcome the manner in which my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore has picked up the issue on which the hon. Member for Broxtowe has campaigned, and the fact that the House has an opportunity to begin to close that loophole.

Fortunately, the tragic scenario that Mr Horsey has brought to the House appears to be very rare—the death of a mother during or soon after childbirth is thankfully a very rare event in our country. Nevertheless, I understand that 261 mothers passed away within 42 days of giving birth between 2019 and 2021, and that is 261 too many. Each of those cases represents a tragic loss for their families and friends. In most of those cases the father or partner will have been eligible for shared parental leave because they met the eligibility requirements, and in most cases they could have taken over their partner’s parental leave and, crucially, the entitlement to statutory pay that would have been shared by both parents had the mother survived. In some cases, however, as my hon. Friend has explained, a father or partner who does not meet the continuity of employment test and is not entitled to shared parental leave is left in the awful position, potentially, of having to care for their new-born baby, while grieving the loss of their partner, and yet having no guarantee of parental leave. It is clearly right for us to close that gap.

Before I move on to the wider debate about rights to paternity leave and employment rights, I want to reflect on some of the other contributions that we have heard this morning. The hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) did the House a service by mentioning the work of the UK Commission on Bereavement and the challenges faced by her constituents when experiencing bereavements of this kind and then bringing up small children. She was also right to make a wider point about bereavement still being a taboo, and the difficulty of dealing with the issues of grief and loss that our friends and members of our communities feel. That needs to be explored. As she rightly said, thought must be given to how we provide better access to emotional support, and the bereavement commission is already doing important work to ensure that people have access to practical help and support and do not have to worry about their employment situation or, perhaps, access to benefits.

The hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) was also supportive of the Bill and made some positive comments in the debate. The hon. Member for Broxtowe has been quietly impressive when speaking about this issue in the House. Normally I would be holding a surgery on a Friday, and I think it right for Members, when it is appropriate, to bring the individual problems of those who attend their surgeries to the Floor of the House. That is one of the unique things about our democracy and, despite all its challenges, it is why our democratic system continues to be arguably the best in the world.

I commend the hon. Member for Broxtowe for his support for Mr Horsey, who I hope will take some comfort from the cross-party support for the work of his Member of Parliament and, indeed, for this Bill. The hon. Gentleman rightly raised the question of potential costs for employers and the fear that some might have about those costs, but he rightly noted that the cost implications are very limited, which is another reason to support the Bill.

The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton) eloquently supported the case for the Bill. He rightly said how awful a prospect it would be for any of us to lose our partner, in any circumstance, particularly when our children are young and have round-the-clock needs. The trauma of losing a partner at the moment of a baby’s arrival is almost unimaginable.

The hon. Member for Bury North helpfully described the mutual humanity of Members on both sides of the House, and he spoke about the cross-party work to get the Bill to this stage. Cross-party work does not often get much attention and has plenty of detractors but, in this case, there is clear evidence of its benefits.

[James Daly]

I do not wish to put the hon. Gentleman on the spot, but I want to raise an issue in this ongoing conversation. Does he believe that the House should further consider bereavement leave? I mentioned the Big Fandango, a charity that supports families following a suicide. Older parents may well be grieving the loss of children in very tragic circumstances, so we need a wider debate on how we support people going through bereavement. This Bill is a good starting point.

[Gareth Thomas]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point, and it is one of the reasons why I was particularly keen to praise the work of the UK Commission on Bereavement, which the hon. Member for Congleton raised. I hope there will be a debate, and perhaps the Backbench Business Committee will be receptive to the case for one.

In 2003, my party introduced the first entitlement to paternity leave. I was very pleased to vote for it and, indeed, to take paternity leave following the births of my children. I welcomed the Government’s introduction of shared parental leave but—and I say this gently, because I do not want to spoil the positive, cross-party discussions on this Bill—it has perhaps not gone as well as we might all have hoped, with just 2.8% of partners deciding to take it up.

My understanding is that the Government’s evaluation of shared parental leave has noted a series of problems. Some seven in 10 employers, while being aware of shared parental leave, are not actively promoting it to their employees, and a third of mothers and nearly half of fathers who did not take shared parental leave had not even heard of it. There are clearly issues with the take-up of shared parental leave and, if not today, it would be good to hear from the Minister how the Government plan to address those issues.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore has secured support across the House for this important Bill, which will address a very particular loophole. We certainly want to see it progress and have its Second Reading.