Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration Etc.) Bill

Henry Smith Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 2nd February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for kindly calling me. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter). I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) on introducing this important Bill. It is a bit of a smorgasbord of issues that are all important in their own right. It may not come as a surprise to the House that I want to touch on clause 3 on the registration of pregnancy loss occurring before 24 weeks and clause 4 on investigations by coroners into stillbirth.

I have huge amounts of time for the aim of clause 3, and I recognise the huge inequality in the particular case that my hon. Friend raised of the poor mother who lost twins, one born before and one born after the 24 week cut-off date. Only one of them was recognised by the law. That is why the review set out in the Bill is so important.

I am immensely proud to co-chair the all-party group on baby loss, which the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) and my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis)—I am pleased to see them both in the Chamber—helped to set up. With my hon. Friend, I remember collaring the former Member for Ipswich, who was then the Care Quality Minister, at about 1.30 am during a Finance Bill. We sat him down and discussed how we were to take our work on baby loss forward, and how we would address some of the big issues.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) on his Bill, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince) for his work on baby loss. I lost my son, Ethan, to stillbirth in 2004, and—it might sound strange to say this—I was fortunate to get a stillbirth certificate, because the incident occurred post 24 weeks. I commend my hon. Friend and others for everything they are doing to further this important cause.

[Will Quince]

I am very sorry to hear of my hon. Friend’s loss, and I thank him for his campaigning on this issue. He makes an important point about the discrepancy in our law, and the time has come to address it.

The all-party group on baby loss has two fundamental aims. The first is to reduce stillbirth and neonatal death, and the Government have been hugely supportive on that aim. We now have a target of halving stillbirth and neonatal death by 2025. When I first arrived in Parliament and we raised the issue in late 2015, the aim was to achieve that reduction by 2030, but the date has been brought forward. That is fantastic news, because we lose between nine and 15 babies every day. We have one of the worst records in the western world, and it has to change. The Government have put in place a number of steps to make that happen, and I am hugely positive and optimistic about the future.

Even if we meet the aim of reducing stillbirth and neonatal death by 50%, however, 2,500 to 3,000 babies will be stillborn every year. That does not even touch on the huge number of parents who suffer what we define in law as a miscarriage, and the Bill will give us the opportunity to look at registration and recognition in that area. Even if we achieve all our aims, there will still be parents who go through this emotional and personal tragedy. That is why bereavement care and support are so important. The hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West was right to mention cold cots, because we need such facilities—and, indeed, bereavement suites—in every hospital in the country.