Bereavement Leave: Loss of a Child

Paul Masterton Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Westminster Hall

[Paul Masterton (East Renfrewshire) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of bereavement leave for families who lose a child.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Brady. I am pleased that the House has the opportunity to debate the provision of formal statutory leave for those parents who suffer the unimaginable pain of losing a child, and the wider bereavement support that we can offer.

The genesis of the debate is the all-party parliamentary group for children who need palliative care, of which I am honoured to be a member alongside several hon. Members in attendance today. I pay tribute at the outset to Together for Short Lives for both the work it does in supporting the APPG and the voice it provides for babies, children, young people and their parents when a short life is expected. I also thank the other charities supporting the debate, including CLIC Sargent, Rainbow Trust, Children’s Hospices Across Scotland and Bliss. I also highlight the work of the all-party parliamentary group on baby loss—and, in particular, that of its co-chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince), who has pursued this incredibly sensitive issue with dignity and determination.

The Conservative manifesto may have had more than a few faults, but the commitment on page 70 that a Conservative Government would

“ensure all families who lose a baby are given the bereavement support they need, including a new entitlement to child bereavement leave”

rightly attained wide support across the population. More than 5,000 children die every year, leaving many thousands of parents to go through that personal tragedy, and 60% of those deaths occur in the first year. While this issue is always tricky to discuss—I have two children under three, and many people in the Chamber and in our constituency and Westminster offices have personal experience of it—it is vital that we talk about it, show support to parents in that tragic situation and help to give them some reassurance that their jobs and pay—the last thing anyone in that situation should have to worry about—will be protected. It is right for Parliament to look at the rights given to parents.

The APPG for children who need palliative care was therefore concerned that bereavement leave was not referenced explicitly in the Queen’s Speech. The initial driver for hosting the debate was to obtain assurance from the Government that it had not been lost in the fray. Happily, that concern has been somewhat superseded by the announcement that the Government intend to support the private Member’s Bill tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake). That is welcome news. The Bill will address the existing discrepancy whereby parents who lose a newborn, or whose child is stillborn, are entitled to full parental leave, but someone who loses an infant, toddler or older child at any point after which parental leave may be taken is reliant entirely on the good grace of their employer. Of course, we are still a long way from that Bill becoming law, and, as we know, private Members’ Bills often do not reach the end point, so we must continue to ensure that the Government keep to their word.

The debate is also timely in the light of Baby Loss Awareness week, now in its 15th year, taking place in a few weeks’ time, between 9 and 15 October. It is a collaboration between 40 UK charities to raise awareness about the issues surrounding pregnancy and baby loss. This year’s main focus is a call to improve bereavement support for families affected by baby and pregnancy loss. I am sure the whole House will join me in supporting Baby Loss Awareness week.

It is evident that the standards, quality and consistency of bereavement care vary wildly across the UK, with bereavement care training not being mandatory and so not readily available. Far too many health boards both north and south of the border do not have dedicated bereavement rooms in their maternity units. Could this Government and the Scottish Government do more to recognise the importance of bereavement services and ensure that they are being commissioned for families? I certainly think they could.

In Scotland—Mr Brady, I appreciate that provision of health services is devolved—more than 5,800 babies are admitted into neonatal services. The care that those babies receive in the first hours, days and weeks of their life is critical to their survival and lifelong health. We know that the healthcare professionals delivering such care every day are committed to bringing about the very best outcomes for babies and their families, yet we also know that services right around the UK are under pressure.

Research by Bliss Scotland has shown that, in common with the position in England, many neonatal units across Scotland consistently do not meet national standards on safe staffing levels, and units often cannot offer parents facilities to stay with their critically ill baby so that they can be involved in their care. Similar pressures exist throughout children’s services units for older kids. Family-centred care must be embedded in relevant hospital units, with guidance outlining minimum standards on the level of free accommodation and other practical and financial support packages available to parents. In my constituency, about 89 babies who need specialist care to survive are born each year. While many will go on to thrive, sadly some do not. Many other families have the joy of a healthy and happy child being brought into the world but then suffer the pain of loss years later due to illness or tragic accident.

Given that we know parents with a child receiving vital care will incur significant financial expenditure on items such as parking, travel, food and drink, and childcare for other children as well as loss of earnings, it is surely right that, if the worst follows, the Government are there to provide some assistance in those darkest of hours. Indeed, in the west of Scotland, those additional costs are estimated to be about £200 a week, and that is in a pretty urban area. The cost for parents in rural parts of Scotland is significantly higher. Introducing statutory bereavement leave seems the very least we in this place can do, at a cost of what—a few million quid? The value of the peace of mind and reassurance that would give to parents whose world has disintegrated around them is immeasurable. Paid leave would give parents the time to make decisions based on their needs rather than their financial situation. It is a law we want, but never want to rely on.

We may want to believe that all employers, large and small, will be sympathetic to employees—indeed, many do provide discretionary compassionate leave—but the truth is that not all are. A recent survey run on behalf of Child Bereavement UK found that almost a third of those who had suffered the loss of a loved one in the past five years felt they had not been treated compassionately by their employer. A father of a baby born at 26 weeks, who died aged three days, was called during his two-week paternity leave by his employer and told that, because his son was dead, there was no child to look after, so he was being treated as absent without leave and asked when he would be returning to work. The man did not work for a small business that was perhaps a bit backward in its approach to human resources; he worked for a large multinational company with more than 20,000 employees in the UK. Some form of statutory protection is therefore needed.

The Employment Rights Act 1996 merely allows employees to take a “reasonable” amount of unpaid time off to deal with an emergency involving a dependant. As Ministers have rightly recognised, holding down a job at the same time as dealing with grief can be incredibly difficult. Therefore, more must be done. I am pleased that the Government are intent on providing parents with the support they need, but we must consider whether the availability of leave should be restricted to parent carers or extended to legal guardians and others who may have had formal caring responsibilities. At the very least, we need to look more carefully at the definition of “parent”, and who should be entitled to leave.

I also question whether we need to build flexibility into the system, and not assume that parents suffering from grief will want simply to take two single weeks in blocks a short time after the death of a child. Organisations such as Together for Short Lives and Rainbow Trust have asked for the period during which leave can be taken to be extended to 52 weeks.

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

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. I am delighted to have the privilege of taking forward a Bill on this matter, which was first introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince), to try to ensure that people get bereavement leave in such circumstances. My hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Paul Masterton) has clearly thought long and hard about some of the issues. Will he be willing to work with me and my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester to ensure that we get the provisions right from the start so that the Bill looks after those who are affected by these terrible tragedies?

[Paul Masterton]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I would be honoured to work alongside him and my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester in taking this issue forward and ensuring that it gets to where it needs to be. Given the findings of the Taylor report regarding the modern world of work—I know the Minister has been closely involved with that report—the increase in self-employed individuals and the wider discussions around extending benefits to them, could the Government take steps for an equivalent benefit to be offered to self-employed parents?

I want to finish by talking about the support we might need to give employers—particularly small employers —in dealing with employees in such a situation. Child Bereavement UK noted:

“Fear of returning to work and facing colleagues, loss of confidence and increased sick leave are not uncommon. Ability to concentrate, make decisions, meet deadlines and maintain performance and productivity levels can all be at least temporarily compromised, and there can be higher incidences of job-related injuries and accidents.

This not only has the potential to impact on a bereaved employee’s ability to work effectively, but can also have a knock-on effect on other employees, who are often at a loss as to how to respond when a colleague returns to work after bereavement, and over time may feel that accommodating the needs of a bereaved colleague places added pressure on them.”

A survey by the Rainbow Trust found that more than half of parents who were working at the time their child died did not feel they were given enough time to cope, and that 50% took at least one month off work. Paid bereavement leave needs to sit alongside a wider package of bereavement support, both for the parents, through psychological support, and for employers, through ensuring that they are able to put in appropriate frameworks and bereavement policies to manage the needs of not only the employee concerned but the business and wider workforce.

[Joan Ryan (Enfield North) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. I welcome the Government’s commitment to supporting the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), as I hope that Members across the House will. I have a family in my constituency who lost a young child in very difficult circumstances—they do not wish to be named—and their point to me was that when somebody is bereaved there is often a lot of support at the time, but the psychological consequences continue long after that support has gone away and people forget what happened. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that ongoing psychological counselling support should be made available to bereaved parents, and that the training for employers should convey the importance of such ongoing counselling?

[Paul Masterton]

I could not agree more. Grief affects everyone differently, and it can sometimes be months or even years before the true ramifications and consequences of someone’s experience really hit home. Grief can also potentially be the start of a cycle of behaviour that can lead to far more destructive circumstances, particularly in the family home. It is not uncommon for families who have suffered an extreme bereavement situation to end up breaking down completely, often, as the hon. Lady mentioned, because support in the early days and weeks might be good, but there is not sufficient follow-up to ensure that people do not go down the wrong path.

I hope that we, as a party, make good on our manifesto commitment. I have not been in this place for very long, but we seem to spend a lot of time beating each other about the head, so it is nice, every once in a while, to find something we can all work on together in a positive manner. I sincerely hope that this is one such issue. I look forward to hearing what other hon. Members have to say, and I thank them for coming to support the debate.

[Mr Graham Brady (in the Chair)]

At least five Back-Bench Members want to contribute. For the convenience of the House, I will say that I would like to move on to winding-up speeches by 5.10 pm at the very latest. I will not impose a time limit now, but I suggest that, if hon. Members could keep their contributions to no more than six or seven minutes, we might hope to get everybody into the debate.