Houses of Parliament (Family-friendliness)

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Westminster Hall

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

I am fairly new to the House, having replaced Dame Dawn Primarolo, who came to the House in 1987 as a young woman with a young child. That was unusual at the time, when there were only 44 women MPs. I know from the work she did and led, and the work of the all-party group on women in Parliament, how much progress has been made. I am certainly a beneficiary of that, including in my constituency, which selected another woman, with three dependent children of school age. I hope to follow my predecessor’s example and am delighted to be part of the debate.

I am the mother of three boys aged 16, 13 and 10. I understand that it is quite unusual to turn up here with children already at school. I agree that one of the great things about joining this place has been the reaction among families in Bristol. My children’s friends, and the teachers and support staff from their schools, have stopped them in the street—it is quite emotional—to say, “Isn’t it fantastic what your mum is doing?” Local journalists have said to me on the side, quietly, “How are you going to manage it? That’s quite impressive.” The reaction from wider society to a woman joining Parliament at this stage with growing children has been a real shock to me. It has been a pleasure to take responsibility for making it easier and to say to people, “Actually, a lot of people leave home during the week to do their job.”

[Colleen Fletcher (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way when time is short. I concur with all the comments made about family-friendliness with regard to children, but looking at it from another angle, does my hon. Friend agree that MPs who are carers of other family members also need time to talk and for family time at the end of the day? For instance, my husband was very ill with cancer last year and needed attention. He does not need a crèche in this place, but other family members certainly have needs.

[Karin Smyth]

I absolutely agree. I will come on to make a similar point about looking after older people.

From the mouths of babes: in the summer, my 10-year-old said to me that a boy in his class told him that he does not see his dad in the morning because he leaves Bristol before he gets up, that he gets back from work late, at 10 o’clock, and that he is away at work five days a week. I have generally been able to get home on a Thursday to pick up my 10-year-old, so I take the point made by others that some people have it worse than many of us. We are sometimes able to flex our working days and to plan around our home life. I think my little 10-year-old suddenly thought to himself, “I’m a bit better off than many others.”

I said that I was going to mention caring for older people. My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North East (Colleen Fletcher) made a good point about caring for spouses and other family members. That is very important, especially for people in their 50s and 60s.

I concur with my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) about the culture here, particularly on a Wednesday, when there is a noticeable difference in the number of photographers, journalists and lobby groups—particularly young men—in this place. That reflects the fact that family-friendliness is about not only MPs and perceptions of privilege, but the wider political culture in which we operate. I praise our journalists, photographers, lobbyists and so on for their work, and I hope that by having this debate, we lend some support to that wider movement.

There are lessons to be learned from the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments about the predictability of the agenda. As the right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Sir Simon Burns) said, we should commend political parties. It was only through all-women shortlists that the Labour party was able to force itself to take the issue seriously and to build a weight of numbers. The Conservative A-list has also helped. We must welcome the number of women who have come into Parliament as Scottish National party Members. There is a good opportunity for Parliament to lead on this issue.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hamilton. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) on securing this important debate and thank her for her excellent contribution.

Last night, I left the House at about 10.40 pm, after votes. I understand that that is decidedly early for this place, but it is even earlier than the leaving times of the Doorkeepers, the catering staff, librarians and all the other staff on the parliamentary estate who work around the operations of the political business of the day. The reality is that, when parliamentary life is so unpredictable, neither staff nor MPs can easily plan their real lives outside this place. The concept of family-friendliness is often seen in narrow terms—that it is the women MPs who have children who want a system to suit them. The right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) said we should have a people-friendly Parliament. We should have a system that suits as many people as possible and that suits their lives as much as possible, and that includes the staff who work here as much as the MPs, the men as much as the women, and those with family caring responsibilities other than children.

Making parliament more family friendly is a crucial step towards achieving equal representation for women in politics, which, unfortunately, we are far from achieving. In 2015, only 29% of Members of Parliament are female. The UK is doing worse on female representation than Uganda, Zimbabwe and many of our European neighbours. The good news is that we have increased the number of female MPs since the election in May, and we have now overtaken Afghanistan—just.

Equally important to this debate is the motherhood gap in the House of Commons. That is to say, female MPs are significantly less likely than our male colleagues to have children. My hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Jo Cox) transposed the figures a little, but the studies conducted during the previous Parliament showed that although only 28% of male MPs had no children, the figure for women was much higher—45%—which suggests that women view the life of an MP as incompatible with caring for a child. The system is geared towards the traditional view that parliamentarians are men with a wife at home to look after the children. There is no consideration of modern families that do not fit that outdated concept. The same goes for staff in this place. Are single parents, new parents and carers less likely to consider working on the parliamentary estate as a career when the system is so unpredictable? I do not know; perhaps the Minister does.

The Government have worked hard to present themselves as a modern, representative, “UK now” Government, but failing to take seriously such inherent issues in the system, which present themselves again and again, leaves our great Parliament looking more stuck in the dark ages than the gothic arches under which we sit. This matters, because a House of Commons that is truly representative of the population of the United Kingdom will be more attuned to the needs of the public. For example, it was following a surge in the number of women MPs entering Parliament 20 years ago that the gender pay gap started to be properly measured and began to close. Similarly, some of the issues that most desperately need addressing today are those that parents are acutely conscious of, such as the need for affordable childcare and the need to ensure that the housing market works for our children’s generation.

I thank all hon. Members who spoke today—particularly those who shared their personal experiences of how difficult the House can be for Members with children. I know that there is only a small sample of Members here today, but in a survey conducted by Mumsnet, which another colleague spoke about earlier, two thirds of MPs said that their job has a negative impact on their family life. One MP surveyed said:

“I have a two-year-old daughter and no-one cares if I don’t see her.”

Another senior MP said:

“I never saw my children grow up and I’ll regret this to the day I die.”

I think that is a terrible indictment of a modern working environment.

A number of excellent points have been made by colleagues today about how Parliament is failing to be family-friendly. If, as the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) said, councils can make accommodation to allow new mums to bring their babies into the chamber and, as has been mentioned, the European Parliament allows elected Members to breastfeed babies during debates, is it not time for this place to open itself up to a 21st-century way of working, rather than hide behind Victorian values?

Hon. Members said that the tabloid media might seek to undermine breastfeeding parents in this place. If breastfeeding continues to be viewed as the exception rather than the rule and does not become commonplace then, yes, it is open to ridicule.

[Karin Smyth]

It is not just about elected institutions. I served as a non-executive director of a primary care trust 10 years ago, and I was able to bring my young child along to health authority meetings and breastfeed without any fear of anything going wrong. A wide range of other bodies also manage to do the same.

[Melanie Onn]

There is nothing more to add to that; it is the perfect example of how it can work in different environments.

My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley kindly credited me for proposing that parliamentary recesses coincide with the school holidays, but I do not think I was the first to propose that. We need to take a long, hard look at how we operate. It is ludicrous that we are about to go on recess, but half term was two weeks ago. I am not going to see my son for an extended period. I have been reduced to being a parent for three nights a week, which does not feel very satisfactory. As other hon. Members said, Scottish schools’ summer holiday periods coincide with just two weeks of parliamentary recess. Giving greater consideration to planning our sitting days around term times would greatly benefit not just MPs but House staff, but that does not seem to be forthcoming. The Government still have not announced the House’s recess dates for Easter, which is just four months away. Will the Minister tell us whether there is any justification for that, other than tradition?

This is not just a legislative Chamber but a workplace and, I think, a museum. We welcome visitors from around the world to view the Palace. We invite constituents, businesses and charities to meet us, so where are the signs for the baby changing facilities? Where are the designated areas for breastfeeding? We should be leading by example and showing what a modern working environment can be. How can we lecture employers on flexible working and childcare provision if we cannot get it right ourselves and do not even seem to be trying?

Professor Sarah Childs from the University of Bristol, who is here today, has been appointed to carry out an independent assessment of gender inequality in Parliament. When I last asked the Minister about what changes are being planned to make Parliament more family friendly, she just said that the Procedure Committee had looked at sitting hours and decided not to make further changes. In this debate, we have heard that there is a wide range of other issues that we should consider in the round. I hope the Minister agrees that, once the report is published, it is right and proper to have a debate in the Commons Chamber in Government time so we can properly debate its findings.