Parental Bereavement Leave and Pay (Consequential Amendments to Subordinate Legislation) Regulations 2020

Lord McNicol of West Kilbride Excerpts

Monday 23rd March 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

I thank the Minister for that introduction. I am not sure whether I am the understudy or the understudy’s understudy, but it has been instructive reading a number of SIs over the weekend and doing my homework. I admit I was shocked to learn that, from government estimates, only two-thirds of businesses provide parental bereavement leave currently, particularly when the last figures I saw, from 2017, were that 7,600 babies and children under 18 died. This is not insignificant. The Minister rightly paid tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Knight, but this also derived from a Private Member’s Bill by Kevin Hollinrake MP and noble Lords should credit him for that.

I very much welcome what the Minister has said and recognise that this is the third of the three statutory instruments needed to put this in place, but I ask the Minister why it has taken two years from passing the original Bill to get this much-needed help. The Minister hoped that this would lead to certain consequences; I hope there will be a communications exercise with business, particularly small businesses, about this duty. I also hope that there will be a full review, not overengineered, of how this is being put in place, after a period—I do not know how long that should be, but maybe a year or shorter—to see whether businesses are really complying. Otherwise, this hard-fought new right, which we very much welcome, will not be worth as much as has been hoped.

[Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab)]

My Lords, I echo and share the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, especially in thanking both the MP and the noble Lord, Lord Knight, for their work to get this on the statute book. The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, touched on the numbers affected. Before I continue, I declare a non-financial interest as a patron of the children’s charity, Jigsaw4u, which supports the flip of this—children whose parents have died. It is within the same area, so I note that.

This side also supports the intention and wording of this SI. It is good to see legislation or rights being brought in from day one, something we were able to do starting with the Employment Rights Act in the 1990s. Most issues have been touched on, so there is no need to repeat them. This is just to say that we welcome and support both the intention and language of this SI.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I thank both the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and the noble Lord, Lord McNicol, for their contributions to this brief debate. This is not a matter of controversy, but I thank them for supporting its introduction, nevertheless. When we debated the main regulations to implement parental bereavement leave and pay a few weeks ago, the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, who played such a crucial role in this—together with Members from the other place, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones—remarked that this legislation is an example of where the democratic and parliamentary process has worked well to effect a change in the law.

For noble Lords who do not know, this legislation is a result of a tireless campaign by Lucy Herd, whose son, Jack, died 10 years ago. This explains why it has been given the title “Jack’s law”, which has been used interchangeably with the much more complex formal title “parental bereavement leave and pay” in the media.

This Government are committed to supporting working parents and making this country the best place both to work and grow a business. Jack’s law is an important step towards achieving this. Together with the other regulations that have already been debated, this SI will provide bereaved parents with the space to grieve following the death or stillbirth of their child, and will send the right signal to employers and colleagues about the value of compassion and support at such a tragic time.

I reiterate that these regulations represent a statutory baseline, which should be considered the bare minimum that an employee who has suffered this tragic loss should expect from their employer. As always, the Government encourage all employers to go further than statutory minima, where they are able to, and to act compassionately and considerately towards their staff. Most employers already provide exemplary bereavement support to their staff. However, some still do not, so I hope this new legislation not only ensures minimum protection for all employees, but also leads to better workplace support for bereavement across the board.

Turning to the contributions, the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, asked me why this has taken two years. It has been complex to get the policy right. There have been a number of challenges to departmental resources, not to mention the incredible amount of work preparing for something that did not happen, which was a no-deal Brexit. It was always the intention to get the regulations in place to apply from April 2020.