Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration Etc.) Bill

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 2nd February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton]

My day is complete.

Finally, let me deal with the subject of stillbirths. This is perhaps the most emotionally traumatic part of the Bill. On many occasions, the House has been moved by the personal testimonies of Members in all parts of the House who have spoken out bravely and vividly about their own family experiences. It is because of those emotional personal testimonies that this whole subject probably punches well above its weight in this place—quite rightly—and by doing so has given a voice and hope to the too many parents who are directly affected by the tragedy of stillbirth. I pay tribute to the work of the all-party group on baby loss, and particularly the work done by my hon. Friends the Members for Colchester (Will Quince), whom I am delighted is here today, and for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach), the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Vicky Foxcroft), my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis), and the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson)—and I am sure anybody I have missed will take the opportunity to intervene or make a speech later in the debate. This has been a great cross-party effort, which is something we do well in this House when we get it right.

I first became involved with this subject while shadow Children’s Minister and then later when a constituent came to me with a tragic tale of how she had suffered a series of miscarriages and then a stillbirth after 19 weeks. A stillbirth is classified as such only if the gestation period is 24 weeks or more; one day less, and that stillbirth becomes a non-viable delivery, more commonly referred to as a mid-trimester miscarriage. There are no central records of exactly how many babies are born in that way, so they do not form part of the perinatal mortality figures, which, while falling—fortunately—are still far too high in this country. Without wishing in any way to downplay the importance and pain of a miscarriage, particularly for new parents struggling to have their first child, the experiences are different. That was brought home to me most starkly by the story of my constituent Hayley.

Back in 2013, Hayley was pregnant. For nearly 20 weeks she carried the child of her partner Frazer. She felt the baby kicking; she went through all the other ups and downs of pregnancy. Previously she had suffered a miscarriage after just a few weeks. Sadly, after around 19 weeks something went wrong, and Hayley and Frazer’s baby died unborn. It was not a miscarriage, and the following week Hayley had to go through the pain of giving birth to a baby that she knew was no longer alive. She had to take powerful drugs to induce the pregnancy; she experienced contractions; and she went into Worthing Hospital and had pain relief. The following day, in June, she gave birth to her baby, Samuel. She held Samuel in her arms. She and her partner took photographs, had his hand and footprints taken and said their goodbyes.

Fortunately, Hayley was given good support by the clinical staff at Worthing Hospital—an outstanding hospital, particularly its maternity department—and had bereavement guidance later. She has an understanding employer in West Sussex County Council, and she was also fortunate to find a sympathetic funeral director, and the funeral took place two weeks later.

To all intents and purposes, Hayley went through all the experiences of pregnancy and the pain of childbirth endured by any other mother, but they were coupled in this case with the unimaginable grief of a parent who has lost a child before they could ever get to know him. She did not just go through a stillbirth: she had a still baby; she became a mum.

The crucial difference is that Hayley and Frazer’s baby is not recognised in the eyes of the state because he was born before 24 weeks’ gestation. If he had survived until 24 weeks and one day, he would have been recognised and the death properly registered in a register of stillbirths. More than just adding to the statistics, that would have been the acknowledgement of an actual, individual baby. To add further insult to injury, Hayley had to hand back her maternity exemption certificate straight afterwards. I am glad to report that the story has a happy ending, because Hayley and Frazer went on to have a child, healthy and doing well, and last year also got married.

The stark difference I have described surely cannot be right; it adds insult to the unimaginable pain that the parents have already had to suffer. Until the passing of the Still-Birth (Definition) Act 1992, which amended the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953, the threshold was 28 weeks, so prior to that even more babies went unrecognised in official records. That change followed a clear consensus in the medical profession on the age at which a baby is considered viable. Since then, there have been cases of babies born before 24 weeks who have, incredibly, survived.

It is true that there is an informal procedure for hospitals to issue so-called commemorative certificates for foetuses that are not classified as stillbirths. They provide parents with a certificate that records their pregnancy loss before 24 weeks. The charity Sands has produced a template of a certificate of birth and encourages all hospitals to adopt it. However, it is unofficial and counts for little or nothing in the eyes of the state.

As a result of this case, I brought a ten-minute rule Bill before this House on 14 January 2014. It was supported by a number of Members here today and was widely supported across the House, but, as usually happens, it ran out of parliamentary time. However, I did take the issue further with the help of the then Health Minister my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter), who hosted a roundtable at the Department of Health and we were in the middle of coming up with a solution, with the aid of the Royal College of Midwives, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, which has been very supportive, and the charity Sands among others. Alas, however, as has been the bane of my private Member’s Bill experience, the Minister was moved on and the initiative was lost.

This Bill would resurrect that initiative by committing the Government to holding a proper review of how we could come up with a scheme whereby the state would recognise that a child such as Samuel actually existed. For the many parents who have written to me since I first launched my Bill, it would help to bring some closure after a truly traumatic ordeal. Some of the experiences that have been revealed to me are unimaginable to those of us lucky enough not to have gone through it with their own children.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech, which is very difficult to listen to. Will he go into detail about the effects of registration of a baby’s body—on the burial of the body, for example, or what happens to the remains—and also on the legal position of maternity and paternity leave for the bereaved parents?

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

It is an honour to take part in this debate, but I must confess that I was slightly confused by the remarks made by the hon. Member for Lincoln (Karen Lee), because as I see it, this is not a matter to politicise; these are complicated moral issues that we are finding our way through together, consensually. Some of the best things I have done since I have been in this House have been done on a cross-party basis and on these very difficult issues.

I thoroughly support, in its entirety, this Bill put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), but, unusually for an MP, I am going to confine my remarks to the three areas of it of which I have personal experience. I will therefore leave the issue of civil partnerships to others whom I know want to talk about that.

The inequality of marriage certificates was one of the first issues I came across as a constituency MP when I entered the House back in 2015. We had an excellent debate in Westminster Hall, at which many hon. Members here today were present, where I spoke about a terrible story of my constituent, whose father subjected her and her siblings to sexual abuse over a number of years. She has not seen him since she was 10. Were she to get married now—I believe that the current law is one of the reasons why she has not got married—she would very much want to leave the “father” field blank, while her mother, who, as a heroine, brought her up and helped her and her siblings cope with the legacy of this awful abuse, would get no mention. That is simply wrong.

This Bill will ensure that the Secretary of State undertakes a full review of the system. I accept the need to look for efficiencies and to find ways to create a more secure system for the maintenance of marriage records. We must also consider what terminology we use to recognise all forms of parental relationship. Inevitably, that will take time. As a former church warden, I am familiar with the current register system, and I see no reason why we cannot give celebrants and registrars the ability to cross out “father” and amend at their own discretion, or simply to add to it, at least until that review has concluded. Next week, we mark the centenary of women’s suffrage, and I am afraid that it all feels rather archaic standing here discussing such a glaring yet rectifiable inequality.

Although I accept that, on all sides, we have been slow to deal with marriage certificates, in the three years I have been here the Government have been ambitious in their approach to stillbirths. I am really pleased with the progress we have made, although it does not go nearly far enough, towards halving the number of stillbirths by 2025. The all-party group on baby loss is a force of nature, and I pay great tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Colchester (Will Quince) and for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach), the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) and indeed the former Member for Ipswich. We were all there in the middle of the night starting this group, determined to make things better. We were soon joined by the passion of the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) and then that fabulous speech by the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Vicky Foxcroft) did so much to help our cause. I am proud that we must take some credit for the fact that the way we talk about miscarriages, stillbirths and neonatal loss is changing. As a group, we know there are strong views on the way in which stillbirths are registered and investigated. For me at least, it seems that much should depend on the wishes of the parents. Fear of touching on painful subjects—although, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham made clear, there is no need to upset the abortion laws over this—and talking about them must not render us incapable of reflecting a situation where babies born younger and younger are, happily, now living. Real people are suffering by our failure to address these difficult issues. A mother who has been through labour and is going through lactation, often for a significant number of weeks, for a baby who is stillborn before 24 weeks will of course feel that his or her life should be properly recognised and recorded. I am hopeful that our group will have a great deal of input into the report the Secretary of State will undertake should this Bill progress today.

I was in the House in November for the Secretary of State’s statement on the Government’s new strategy to improve safety in NHS maternity services. Worrying about maternal safety, particularly of those who use the Horton General Hospital in my constituency, keeps me awake at night. Unfortunately, we all know that things can and do go wrong. Bereaved families deserve answers, and are often motivated by a burning desire to ensure that what happened to them will never happen to another family. At the moment, as we know, coroners in England do not have the power to investigate a stillbirth, yet in Northern Ireland, in 2013, the Court of Appeal held that coroners do have such a jurisdiction. I know, through talking to members of MBRRACE-UK—Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries across the UK—that in the vast majority of cases it will not be appropriate for a coroner to investigate a stillbirth. However, in the cases where relations with a hospital have broken down, where there is no faith in internal investigations or where there are wider learning points from a death, this may in a very small number of cases be appropriate.

In my previous career, I used to represent the Government in military inquests, and it strikes me that there is considerable potential for us to provide specialist training to a cadre of coroners brought in to deal with this extremely sensitive area, in much the way that we did having learnt from the introduction of inquests in military situations. I hope we can rely on our Ministers for joined-up, cross-departmental thinking as the work progresses. My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham has kindly met me and Bliss in advance of today’s debate to scope out views. If this Bill progresses, I look forward to engaging with the review that will follow.

This is a sensible and humane Bill, which we, as a cross-party group of Members, should all unite behind. It merely aims to right long-standing anomalies in the law, and it is a real pleasure to support it.