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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether the Government will consider extending statutory leave and pay for parents whose baby is admitted to neonatal care by every week their baby stays in hospital.

The Department is conducting a short, focussed internal review of the provisions for parents of premature babies 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. It would not be appropriate to announce future policy without first establishing an appropriate evidence base.

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. This will inform our policy consideration.