Baby Leave for Members of Parliament

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms Harman]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. No one in this House wants us to give ourselves better conditions than people outside, but we are now actually lagging a long way behind and are in danger of setting a bad example in that respect.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. and learned Friend give way?

[Ms Harman]

I give way to my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour.

[Helen Hayes]

I pay tribute to my right hon. and learned Friend and constituency neighbour for tabling this motion, and for her work over more than 30 years to advance equality for women in this place and in the wider world. Last week, I visited a girls’ secondary school in my constituency, where students asked me what it is like being a woman in the House of Commons. There were gasps in the room when I mentioned that there is no maternity leave for women Members. Does she agree that we owe it to a generation of young women who are now thinking about their future to make this place somewhere where they feel welcome and have the same rights as every other woman in workplaces across the country?

[Ms Harman]

Absolutely; my hon. Friend is spot on.

“Erskine May”, our parliamentary rules bible, says absolutely nothing about pregnancy, which is no surprise at all. It used to be the case that the overwhelming majority of Members were men. It was not that those men were not parents; it was just that they regarded a baby as the sole responsibility of their wives. There were hardly any women in this House then, and those who were here were mostly older women whose children had grown up or who had no children. That was certainly the case when I had my three children as a young Member of this House. I was the only woman in the House having babies at that time. Things have now changed, and the sight of growing pregnant bumps in our Division Lobby is commonplace and celebrated on both sides of the House.