Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, with reference to his Department's internal review of workplace provision for parents of premature babies, what steps his Department is taking to understand the experiences of employed fathers with babies receiving neonatal care.

The Department is conducting a short, focussed internal review of the provisions for parents of premature and sick babies and those that experience multiple births. The purpose of this work is to obtain a high-level understanding of the barriers to participating in the labour market that these parents can face.

BEIS officials are working with organisations who represent the interests of these parents (The Smallest Things, Bliss, and TAMBA) to better understand the issues that parents can face and have also held focus groups with a small number of parents themselves.

We are also considering options for addressing other information gaps – including those that are attributable to regional variations in provision and experiences of parents.