Maternity Commissioner

Karin Smyth Excerpts

Monday 20th April 2026 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Secondary Care (Karin Smyth)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I thank my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) for responding so ably on behalf of the petitioners. That thousands of people wanted us to talk about this subject, many of whom will be watching—many are in the Public Gallery—demonstrates how important the issue is and how it touches so many of our constituents. I am grateful to my own constituents for signing the petition.

I place on record my thanks to Theo Clarke, who is also in the Gallery, who did a lot of work in this area when she was an MP, based on her own experiences. I agree with the hon. Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson) that, by detailing injuries and raising some of the taboos, she did a great service to other women. I also thank Louise Thompson, also in the Gallery, for the time and effort that she has put into campaigning for improvements in maternity care following her own experiences. All the organisations that work on behalf of women, bringing forward their stories to national attention, do a great service—it is not an easy thing to do, and we thank them for it.

The hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Monica Harding), and my hon. Friends the Members for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Lizzi Collinge), for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Rand) and for Shipley (Anna Dixon) all highlighted their constituents’ experiences. To be clear, the Secretary of State leads on this work directly, and a meeting has been set with Louise and Theo to discuss the issue of a maternity commissioner more thoroughly. I encourage both Theo and Louise to continue to engage with the national investigation chaired by Baroness Amos. Their campaigning, along with that of so many others, has led the Secretary of State to directly provide the leadership himself, ensuring that the issue gets attention. We look forward to Baroness Amos’s recommendations.

As many Members have said, the vast majority of births are safe, and there are some outstanding examples of care in the NHS. But where things do go wrong, it can have a devastating impact on women and their families, who are at their most vulnerable when giving birth. We are fighting systemic issues, entrenched inequalities in maternity care, a failure to learn from mistakes, and culture and leadership issues.

It is appalling, as we have heard again in this debate, how in the 21st century in Britain there could be such a difference in outcomes for mothers from different ethnicities and for those from deprived backgrounds, not least in constituencies such as mine. That was a point ably made, as ever, by my hon. Friend the Member for Clapham and Brixton Hill (Bell Ribeiro-Addy), who, in leading the APPG, does an amazing amount of work to highlight the issue. I confirm to her that we remain committed to setting a target to close that mortality gap, and will be informed by Baroness Amos’s recommendation. The issue of deprivation and ethnicity differences was also raised by my hon. Friends the Members for Rochdale (Paul Waugh) and for Worthing West (Dr Cooper). That issue is why the Secretary of State has launched the national investigation into NHS maternity and neonatal care, chaired by Baroness Amos. She is bringing together the findings from past reviews and local rapid reviews, and new evidence from families and staff, into one clear national set of recommendations.

As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe said, previous issues and scandals have produced many recommendations, including, as we have heard, well over 700 recommendations on maternity care since 2015. As my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley reminded us, some of the information from those investigations has been available for well over a decade.

We know what needs fixing, but changes to processes and procedures here and there are not enough. There is a risk that some recommendations might fix the symptoms, but not the underlying causes. Many colleagues have talked about culture. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Andy MacNae): we cannot keep going round in the same cycle. There is an underlying cultural issue, and systemic change needs to happen. I commend my hon. Friend for the work that he does on the APPG and for sharing the loss that he and his family suffered. That loss is informing that work.

My hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Steve Yemm) also talked about that culture and the need for deeper questions. Other Members talked about the need to speak up. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale, who highlighted the importance of that culture of encouraging people to speak up.

[Anna Dixon]

Does the Minister agree that training obstetricians and midwives together as a team is an important part of creating that unified culture that we know is so important to underpin safety for mothers and babies?

--- Later in debate ---

[Karin Smyth]

I agree. That is an important point about the culture in clinical roles and clinical leadership within the secondary care setting and across the entire pathway of supporting women. As part of our 10-year plan, we want to put patients across all parts of the NHS front and centre by building services around people instead of expecting people to build their lives around services.

In February, Baroness Amos published her interim report to share the insights she has gathered so far. She and her team have met with hundreds of families as part of the local investigations, and a national call for evidence from women and families has recently concluded. The surveys were open for eight weeks, hearing from women and families across the country about their experiences of maternity and neonatal care. Over 11,000 responses have been submitted.

A separate call for evidence for those who work in the maternity and neonatal pathway was also held recently. The workforce call for evidence received more than 9,000 responses from across 124 trusts. Baroness Amos’s final report, including one coherent single set of national recommendations, will be published in June.

Some of the women and families who have fed into the national investigation will have suffered terrible loss and harm. This subject is just about the hardest that any woman could ever talk about, and I want to thank all of those who have had the courage to share what they have been through. I thank again my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood Forest (Michelle Welsh) for the inspiration that she has provided by, first, getting herself here, and then continuing to use her voice and doing it so well during her time in Parliament.

All those women and their families deserve to know that their voices will be heard and that action will be taken. That is why the Government have launched their new maternity and neonatal taskforce, chaired by the Secretary of State. It will be the taskforce’s job to translate the investigation’s final recommendations into action. The taskforce will also hold the system to account for improving outcomes and experiences for women and their families. It is all very well coming up with more reports, but we have had enough of those. The taskforce will develop an action plan so that recommendations from the investigation do not gather dust on a shelf. The taskforce held its first meeting on 24 March and it was very positive and constructive.

The terms of reference have been agreed, with meetings every six to eight weeks going forward. The taskforce is made up of experts and key partners from across the maternity and neonatal sector as well as from the wider health sector. It includes representatives from harmed and bereaved families, frontline clinicians, academics and royal colleges—those who can speak directly to health equity and international expertise. The voices of families, and women in particular, are paramount throughout this process. The taskforce will be supported by several expert reference groups, at least five of which include representatives from harmed or bereaved families. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood Forest that it is important that we get this right and work across this field, so that this becomes a once-and-for-all piece of work.

I think we all want to end the cycle of recommendations that do not deliver, and we have heard a lot about that this afternoon. That is what the taskforce is designed to do. It will ensure that the systemic and national changes we need to see are achieved following the investigation’s final report and recommendations, but we are not sitting on our hands until we get to that report. A number of initiatives are already in place to improve experiences and outcomes in maternity and neonatal care. We have already recruited more than 800 more midwives and begun investing more than £140 million to address critical safety risks on the maternity estate, and we are rolling out programmes to tackle discrimination, racism and avoidable brain injuries. We will improve the NHS consistently week on week, month on month and year on year.

The renewed women’s health strategy, which was published last week, will tackle head on the injustices women face. In that strategy, we acknowledged much of what we have heard during this debate, including the existence of medical misogyny, the fact that women are not listened to and the fact that the culture needs to change. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Maya Ellis) noted, it is important that women have choice.

The strategy sets out how we will focus relentlessly on delivering women’s priorities. The challenge for this Government over the next couple of years is not just to build on the progress we are already making but to accelerate it. I want women who signed the petition to know that we have heard them loud and clear. We know that there is so much more that needs to be done, but I ask that they do not judge us on the strategies we publish or the people we appoint—we must be judged by our results. Baroness Amos has given us the blueprint for making things better, and the taskforce will hold us to account. We will not just have one person driving action; there will be 18 of them.

In the meantime, we will not make significant commitments that pre-empt the outcome of the investigation, which we will have in just two months’ time. If Baroness Amos wants to recommend, for example, a maternity commissioner, then we will consider that carefully. The taskforce, with the Secretary of State chairing it to drive accountability, will deliver the action that we all need to see.