Maternal Mortality

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Tuesday 20th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I understand what the noble Baroness is saying and her frustration, which I am sure many of us share. The purpose of the investigation by my noble friend Lady Amos is to pull together all the learning and all the inquiries. She has, for example, given a real voice to those affected, speaking to 170 affected family members. Those voices are what has been missing, and that cannot go on. We are determined to draw a line under where we have unfortunately been and to move forward, while taking direct actions, including, for example, a national programme to support struggling trusts to make improvements.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, recent Health Service Journal investigative journalism has found that the Chief Midwifery Officer wrote to trusts last year identifying gross failures in home births safety, yet the Government have chosen to keep this information private while women are pushed into unsupported births. Is it acceptable for NHS England to hide this evidence of systematic safety risk from the public when the home birth services of 14 trust have effectively ceased to exist, despite the legal duty to provide them?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I am not fully up to speed with the article that the noble Lord raises, but I undertake to look at it and get back to him, because this is a very important matter.