Maternity Commissioner

Paul Waugh Excerpts

Monday 20th April 2026 Westminster Hall

[Paul Waugh (Rochdale) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. I thank my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) for leading this debate. I pay tribute to Louise Thompson, Theo Clarke and the other petitioners for raising the profile of the issue of birth trauma and for helping so many other women to share their own experiences and, crucially, to fight for the changes that will prevent others from having to go through the same trauma. I also put on the record my thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood Forest (Michelle Welsh), who has done a brilliant job with the all-party parliamentary group on maternity and who explained today, by outlining her own personal experience, just what birth trauma can mean.

This debate is fundamentally about how we ensure that women are being heard—genuinely heard—by the national health service. However, it is also about how we raise the levels of care, so that the best care is not an exception but the rule. One of the missions for this Government is restoring trust in maternity care. We know that that trust has been eroded by traumatic experiences, poor standards of care and—even more importantly—women feeling that no one is listening to them.

[Christine Jardine in the Chair]

As has already been said, the rise in maternal mortality is seen in the data produced by MBRRACE-UK between 2021 and 2023 compared with that between 2009 and 2011. That is simply unacceptable. What is particularly stark is the increased risk for women from minoritised communities and for those from disadvantaged backgrounds. In 2023, women living in the most deprived areas were dying at almost twice the rate of those in the least deprived areas. Alongside that data, there has also been an increase in obstetric haemorrhage, which I know worries both mums-to-be and health professionals. Women who want a second child need to know the risks of severe bleeding and placenta previa caused by previous caesarean sections, which are well-documented.

The NHS is not good enough at not only monitoring maternal deaths and morbidity, but monitoring trends in those areas. It is very good at identifying a trend in stillbirth or maternal death, but it is not so good at spotting trends in postpartum haemorrhage and admissions to intensive therapy units, which need the same attention.

The Government have a responsibility to ensure that whatever choice women make, that choice is informed and that the procedures are safe. If women want a home birth, let us make that a real choice; if they want a C-section, let us make that a real choice; and if they want a midwife-led unit or an obstetrician to care for them, let us make that a real choice. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Maya Ellis), who was absolutely spot on in saying that we should move away from making choice in this area a binary decision between safety and choice.

It is time for us to be proactive and not reactive, and to put into place the processes that will protect future mums from negative experiences of maternity care. That is why I am glad that the national maternity and neonatal taskforce, announced by the Government last year, is focused on long-term systemic reform that actually addresses the systematic failures identified by the CQC. The conversation must include midwives who, more than anyone else, want best practice and care for all the mums they work with. It must also ensure that there are oversight, accountability and robust reporting mechanisms that support midwives as well as mums.

Not many people know that word “midwife” is middle English. It literally means “with woman”, which is the crucial point. Midwives across the UK are advocating for women, supporting women and sharing their expertise with women all the time. However, that is also why we need to make continuity of care a reality for women, so that midwives can be “with woman” throughout the pregnancy and the birth. There must also be the investment in staffing that is needed to allow for rotas that provide the gold standard of staffing that everyone wants, both for pregnant women and for midwives.

Earlier this year, I was proud to host a drop-in event for the Royal College of Midwives with my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Sam Rushworth). I put on the record that my wife is a midwife; in fact, she is one of the main reasons why I am in this building today. I came into politics to change the situation for women who are suffering, but also to help to get more midwives in the profession. It has not been explicitly said today, but let us be honest—the last Government failed to invest in the NHS, including in the right number of midwives.

My wife came home night after night saying, “We simply are understaffed. We are chronically understaffed.” She was really worried about the standard of care that would be provided, and about whether it was safe or not. I said that, instead of writing about the maternity crisis, I want to do something about the maternity crisis. That is why I became an MP—to invest real, hard money into the NHS, including in staffing, but also to ensure that we change the procedures and reform the system.

It is worth saying that this is not just about staffing. It is also about having the right culture and leadership, and about whether obstetricians and midwives talk to each other and are on the same side and. Crucially, it is about whether women are listened to throughout the process. There has been far too much avoidable trauma for far too many women, as several inquiries have found.

For my constituents, Royal Oldham hospital maternity services are often of high quality. I have met senior midwives who are trying to provide innovative solutions to the challenges they face, but let us be honest: there are too many times when women are let down at the Royal Oldham. The CQC survey of patient experience, published in December 2025, found some unacceptably poor levels of care. On labour and birth, the hospital scored much worse than expected compared with other trusts. On staff care and on care in hospital after birth, it was much worse than expected compared with other trusts. On that last measure, it had an appalling score of 5.4 out of 10.

It is clear from the debate that a huge amount of work has been undertaken to deliver what we all want: maternity services that are well informed, personalised and safe for all women, regardless of race or background. We owe it to every family to provide maternity services where mums are given a full range of informed choice, backed by medical evidence, where they are genuinely listened to and where compassionate healthcare is at the heart of every birth. There is excellent care in the NHS, and we should say that again and again, but we need to make sure that every area, every trust and every woman has the high quality of care they truly deserve.