Plastic Bottles and Coffee Cups

Debate between Kevin Hollinrake and David Linden

Thursday 17th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel). I am pretty sure that when this debate is replayed on BBC Parliament it will probably be on after the watershed. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) for opening the debate, and I thank the Liaison Committee for securing time for us to debate the issue.

Unusually, I want to pay tribute to the Parliamentary Private Secretary, the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), who is currently in his spot as PPS. This week he met a number of children who had come down from Glasgow and who have been doing some fantastic work. The children were from Sunnyside Primary School, which is actually my mother’s old primary school, although it is much more innovative now. Those children are known as the Sunnyside Ocean Defenders, and they have really been making waves in Scotland with their campaign, #NaeStrawAtAw—I can clarify that for Hansard later.

The campaign expresses a desire to see a reduction in the use of single-use plastic straws, while also being mindful of people with disabilities still needing to access such products. I pay tribute to those kids, who came down here and challenged a huge number of MPs on this issue. Such issues are sometimes a bit popular, but these children are absolutely determined. That was reaffirmed to me later in the afternoon, when the group had a meeting with McDonald’s. The children are currently running a campaign called “Pretty Deadly”, which is about tackling the marketing gimmicks used by big companies, such as the balloons that they give away. I cannot think of many companies in the world that have a more iconic brand than McDonald’s, but the kids, quite rightly, really challenged the organisation, asking questions such as, “Why are you using these plastic balloons that blow away and sometimes end up in Norway or wherever?”

I was challenged not that long ago, during the Easter recess, when I went on holiday to Hammamet in Tunisia. This follows on from the point made by the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham), who is no longer in her place.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

May I pay tribute to the Sunnyside Ocean Defenders? Those young students were so passionate, engaged and knowledgeable. They were interested in not just plastic but many different things in the world that they wanted to improve, including the protection of polar bears. I remember clearly that they also wanted to ban wild animals in circuses, which the Department is very keen to do. I thank the hon. Gentleman for bringing those children down and pay tribute to them and their school.

[David Linden]

The hon. Gentleman is, as ever, incredibly kind, and I am sure that that will be a great encouragement to them. I thank him for passing on a personalised plastic bottle—a reusable one, I must add—to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. The kids really appreciated that, so I am very grateful.

I want to touch on one or two concerns that I have—as you might expect, Mr Deputy Speaker—as we approach Britain’s exit from the European Union. Scottish National party Members believe that the SNP Government are leading the way on tackling waste, but that must not be threatened by the Government’s attack on the devolution settlement. We very much support the European Commission’s vision that all single-use packaging should be easily recycled or reusable by 2030. Devolution has been vital to ensuring that environmental policies and objectives are tailored to our ambition to meet those needs in Scotland, and I am concerned that any power grab from the UK Government could inhibit that.

I am conscious of time, and I promised not to ramble on, but there is one final point I want to make. I will finish where I started, by talking about the children of Sunnyside Primary. It is a school of conservation, and I am incredibly proud of that. Schools often have Latin mottos, but unusually, the motto of Sunnyside Primary is, “We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.” When making decisions as legislators in this House, that should always be at the forefront of our minds.

Parental Bereavement (Leave and Pay) Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Kevin Hollinrake and David Linden

Wednesday 7th February 2018 Public Bill Committees

[David Linden]

I beg to move amendment 2, in schedule, page 2, line 25, leave out from “to” to end of line and insert—

“(a) at least two weeks’ leave, and

(b) at least one day’s leave for the day on which the child’s funeral takes place.”

This amendment would ensure that the minimum period of parental bereavement leave is two weeks plus an additional day for the day of the child’s funeral.

I will not detain the Committee for too long. Amendment 2, in my name and those of my hon. Friends the Members for North Ayrshire and Arran and for Paisley and Renfrewshire North, would provide two weeks’ paid bereavement leave and one additional day dedicated for the child’s funeral. I am particularly grateful to CLIC Sargent, which has lobbied me and countless other hon. Members to table the amendment.

When I spoke to amendment 3, I referred to the sheer range of circumstances faced by parents. Amendment 2 was tabled in the knowledge that if the death of a child is unexplained, for example, there can be a longer period between death and burial or cremation. In Glasgow, there have been delays in post mortems due to hold-ups with the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service.

Amendment 2 would give a bit more flexibility and acknowledge that the day of the funeral can be particularly stressful, busy and difficult. The funeral is in itself a milestone in the grieving process and should, in our view, be treated differently and more flexibly. To conclude, a number of charities, including CLIC Sargent, allow for an additional day for the funeral. On that basis I seek the support of the Committee.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The point made by the hon. Member for Glasgow East is well made. What employer would ever refuse to allow a parent time off for their child’s funeral? Clearly, most employers will not; we know that through the research we have done. Nevertheless, we accept that we need to do more, because we accept that some employers are not reasonable and not compassionate.

I have great sympathy for the hon. Gentleman’s amendment. Clearly, in law all employees are allowed a day one right to take reasonable leave in whatever circumstance. These measures in the Bill are in addition to that basic right. We have said a number of times in this Committee that this is a signal to employers; it does not give all the answers for employers. People’s needs are different in such circumstances.

This is such a personal issue that we expect employers to be compassionate and considerate. We expect them to give the bereaved parents of a child time off for the funeral. Putting that into legislation would be difficult at this point, because of the fragility of private Member’s Bills. I politely ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his amendment and, at this point, we will leave it at two weeks.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Linden]

We are coming to the end, so I will not detain the Committee for long. The amendments, which I tabled with my hon. Friends the Members for Paisley and Renfrewshire North and for North Ayrshire and Arran, address how long someone needs to have been with an employer to fall within the scope of the Bill. I understand the position of the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton that employment eligibility provisions for bereavement pay should mirror those for paternity pay and leave. However, today of all days, when the Government’s response to the Taylor report has acknowledged that people are in precarious and short-term work, I would like to hear the Minister’s thoughts on reducing the eligibility requirement.

It strikes me that rather than introducing a provision that mirrors existing legislation, we have a unique opportunity not just to send a message, but to give ultimate protection, including to people who have not been with their employer for a continuous 26-week period. The Committee has already discussed cut-off points. We know that a number of things can happen to children; in the event of a sudden death, it would be a crying shame if the parent had been with their employer for 25 weeks and six days. I ask the Committee to accept our amendments.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good case for why the circumstances he describes are different from most others. However, consistency is important from an employer’s perspective and certainly from a legislative perspective. Of course, grief cannot be measured in pound notes, but part of our responsibility when introducing legislation is measuring the cost. His amendment would mean our having to revisit the cost and impact for the taxpayer and the employer.

The hon. Gentleman put his case well. The proposal in the Bill is, in any case, a minimum signal; we would expect an employer to be just as sympathetic to someone in this situation in their first 26 weeks of employment as afterwards. We would expect employers to be sympathetic, and I ask the hon. Gentleman to be sympathetic to the most important task, which is getting the Bill through the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Linden]

I beg to move amendment 1, in the schedule, page 7, leave out lines 4 to 6 and insert—

“(1) Statutory parental bereavement pay is payable at an employee’s full rate of pay.”

This amendment would remove the power to set in regulations the rate of parental bereavement pay. Instead, the employee would be entitled to parental bereavement pay at their full pay rate.

We come to the last amendment in this Bill Committee. I know that, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran said, we have all been walking on glass to try to get to this point, and I will be brief. Amendment 1 would set statutory parental bereavement pay at the full rate rather than 90%. I am particularly grateful to CLIC Sargent, with which I have worked closely on this amendment. If hon. Members have not already seen it, I recommend the document “Cancer Costs: The financial impact of treatment on young cancer patients and their families”. There is a copy in the Library.

Currently, as we know, the Bill makes provision for parental bereavement leave pay to be the statutory flat rate or 90% average earnings, whichever is lower. We know from reading the report that having a child with cancer costs parents and they often struggle to meet those costs, particularly for funerals. Therefore it is my belief, and that of CLIC Sargent, that they should be entitled to full pay. I am particularly keen to hear what the Minister has to say about that. I guess this is probably more of a probing amendment, but it is just to say that we recognise that the exceptionally traumatic circumstances of the death of a child are really challenging. We often focus on the emotional aspect of that time, but particularly in the case of families where a child has had a life-shortening or life-limiting condition, there are costs to be borne after that as well. On that basis I seek the support of the Committee for amendment 1.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentlemen’s submissions and the opportunity to debate this matter fully. As drafted, the Bill allows the rate of parental bereavement pay to be set in regulations at a fixed or earnings-related weekly rate. This secures the flexibility to change or increase the rate of pay in the future. Of course, the main aim of the Bill is to ensure that bereaved parents who need time away from work are able to take that time without fear of suffering detriment from their employer as a result. A survey has shown that businesses that responded already provide bereavement leave and most of these companies offer more generous terms than we are stipulating in this Bill, as we have said a number of times before.

As I was asked before, I will not revisit all the arguments I made before about trying to move this Bill forward as much as we can in its original form, to prevent the need for us to go back and revisit some of the calculations that inevitably have to be made to determine effects on the taxpayer and employers, which clearly are important considerations. In the interest of consistency and cost, and also continuity, in that we would like this Bill to continue its progress through this Committee and through the other stages that it needs to go through, to get through the House as quickly as possible, I politely and respectfully ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his amendment.