Baby Loss and Safe Staffing in Maternity Care

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Tuesday 25th October 2022 Westminster Hall

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I could not, and I certainly do not, seek to compete with the personal testimonies of my hon. Friends the Members for Hartlepool (Jill Mortimer) and for Hexham (Guy Opperman). As Members know, I have been around for a while in this place. We sit through many harrowing and poignant debates, but none has been more emotional and more emotive than those that we have traditionally had to commemorate Baby Loss Awareness Week, and today is another example of that. I pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool for securing the debate, and to our colleagues for bravely coming forward with their personal testimonies, which make this problem so real. Understanding it is so important for our constituents.

I was lucky with my three children. I did not have to go through the traumas that we have heard about, but so many people do. Despite all the terrible news that we have heard recently, it is worth noting that maternity services in this country are still safe and that the infant mortality rate has fallen to a historic low. However, we are still 19th out of 28 European countries for mortality rates. The ethnic and regional variations in this country are still a disgrace, and those infant mortality rates do not take account of stillbirths. There are 13 stillbirths a day. No doubt lockdown has made the situation worse.

I want to focus briefly on stillbirth. Stillbirth is 15 times more common than cot death. I concentrate on it, because I have been campaigning on it for many years. My Civil Partnerships, Marriages, Deaths (Registration etc) Act 2019 became law in February 2019. Two of its clauses have taken effect; two have not, and those two are to do with stillbirth. I should not have to discuss this today, because those clauses should have taken effect. My Act gave powers to the Secretary of State for Justice to amend the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 so that coroners had the power to investigate stillbirths. They do not have those powers, because coroners can only investigate the body of a deceased person and a stillbirth is not designated as a deceased person. That is a technical, historical situation.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hexham talked about some infant deaths being described as stillbirths. Given those occurrences, rare though they may be, we have heard stories and The Daily Telegraph ran a campaign recently showing that this issue is still a problem. Given the scandals of East Kent, Shrewsbury and Telford, and Morecambe Bay, we need more than ever the reassurance that the coroner has the ability, if he or she chooses, in a limited number of cases, to investigate whether a stillbirth was a result of mismanagement or incompetence or whatever. Parents need that reassurance, and we could all learn from such cases. This measure must come into force, three and a half years after the legislation that enabled it to do so.

My Act included another clause, which was about recognising stillbirths that take place before 24 weeks but are not designated as ever happening. A panel was set up to look at that back in 2018. I was a member of that panel. It has still not reported; no conclusions have come forward. The Act made it necessary for those conclusions to come forward. Could we at last get on with this important legislation? We all agreed that it was necessary and it was passed unanimously through this Parliament.