Statutory Maternity and Paternity Pay

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Stella Creasy

Monday 27th October 2025 Westminster Hall

[Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Hobhouse. I thank Grace and my hon. Friend the Member for Burton and Uttoxeter (Jacob Collier).

I want to make a speech on behalf of every parent who is right now checking their bank balance, sitting in the back of a dingy soft-play centre, weeping silently. They are looking at us and wondering—screaming—“When will Parliament get it?” They will understand the irony that we are having this debate during half term. It sounds impossible when said out loud, but we in this country appear to think that when someone has a baby, they should live on less than the national minimum wage.

Of course this petition has merit—it speaks to the problems that begin at birth and lock in inequality throughout people’s lives. If someone is on universal credit, working and pregnant, we will claw back some money just to make their life even more complicated. Meanwhile, those who are entrepreneurs or self-employed have no help at all. Little wonder that Maternity Action shows that motherhood is often associated with debt—and it does not stop there. Let us be clear: this is not about taking time off, but about taking on another job with a very expensive clientele. It is estimated that it costs £406 a week to look after a newborn baby, and what if parents have another one? Do the maths, and realise why this place has to up its game.

This is not about counterproductive measures; it is about families. People attack breakfast clubs, but breakfast clubs are not about the state looking after people’s kids; they help parents who would otherwise find it impossible to hold down a job where they are expected to be in a meeting at 9 o’clock.

Affordable childcare is not yet affordable. A constituent who is just about to have a second child wrote to me to say that even with the 30 hours and the tax-free allowance his family still has to find £3,000 a month. It does not stack up, and that is before we get to the cost of the half-term clubs. Parents are trying to find an extra 200 quid this week, while still dealing with the credit card bill from the summer holidays.

Above all, the way we do maternity leave locks in inequality for mums, who get written off by the motherhood penalty and get lumbered with the childcare, and locks out dads from the role of second parent. We do not have time to talk about issues affecting single parents, children with special educational needs and disabled parents.

The review is great, but we have the evidence. We do not need to wait to do something now to help all those people screaming in the soft play centre. We could bring in statutory pay changes or an equal six-week right at 90%. We had a chance to do that in the Lords in the Employment Rights Bill, and we lost it by seven votes. There are interim measures that we could take. I hope the Minister will hear this cry of pain, because this week of all weeks, parents are begging for pay day, worried that they are letting down their kid. Above all, they are asking us in politics to help them.

[Wera Hobhouse (in the Chair)]

Jim Shannon will still have two minutes, and then I will impose a formal time limit of 90 seconds.

Offences Against the Person Act 1861

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Stella Creasy

Tuesday 5th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Stella Creasy]

Absolutely. The hon. Lady—my colleague in writing this proposal—is absolutely right. It simply means that the Northern Ireland Assembly, if it is reconstituted, cannot ignore this issue, because there would be a gap that then had to be filled by medical regulation.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Stella Creasy]

If I may, I would like to make a little progress, because I realise some of this is quite technical.

I want to set out very clearly why a referendum would not be the right approach. Those who are suggesting it need to be clear about what the question would be. What would they consult the public on, and who would write the question? If the law were passed, who would then implement it? Indeed, if we had a referendum on bringing abortion rights or a particular form of abortion to Northern Ireland, would we also allow a referendum on other contested issues, such as the Union itself?

I may not share the views of my colleagues from the DUP about a woman’s right to choose, but I find myself in agreement with the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson), who wrote to one of his constituents saying, “inevitably it is” Westminster

“politicians who have to make the call on this”.

He recognises that

“this law applies across the whole of the United Kingdom and not just Northern Ireland”,

so it is right for MPs in this House to consider whether repealing sections 58 and 59 of OAPA is the right thing to do. I also note that he recognises and acknowledges that

“there is no substantive support among the local political parties”—

in Northern Ireland—

“for extending the 1967 Abortion Act”,

because people would like to be able to write their own legislation. By repealing these provisions in OAPA, we will make that a possibility, and we will therefore make that a possibility in England and Wales as well.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Just to be absolutely clear, does the hon. Lady agree that repealing the provisions in the 1861 Act allows us to adhere to the devolution settlements and to respect women’s right to choose? They are not contradictory.

[Stella Creasy]

Absolutely. Indeed, this is in line with respecting the work that has been done in the Northern Ireland Assembly, when it was constituted, on abortion rights. Working parties had started to look at the kind of medical regulation that might be required. Because there is no Assembly at the moment, those rules cannot be taken forward. However, even if there was an Assembly, OAPA—unless these provisions are repealed—would define that conversation.