It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mary Robinson). May I, too, echo the congratulations to the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) on all his hard work on this Bill? It is a genuine honour to speak in the remaining stages on this private Member’s Bill. We all know how rare it is for there to be a time when such a Bill can progress in this place, but the particular importance of this Bill makes this an even greater achievement. I, too, would like to place on record my sincere thanks to Bliss, the charity that does so much work to help parents with babies in a neonatal unit, for all of its hard work to help sick and premature babies every day of the year. I wish to declare my interest, as a proud vice-chair of the all-party group on premature and sick babies, which has been campaigning on this issue for a very long time. I, too, place on my record my sincere thanks to its chair, my friend, the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden), for all his hard work.
Colleagues may recall that in response to last year’s Gracious Speech I stood in this Chamber and condemned the then Minister for claiming to “remain very much committed” to introducing neonatal leave and pay via an employment Bill only for any trace of the Bill to be surreptitiously removed when the moment came. That was just one of 20 times the Government promised us an employment Bill. I have vocally supported the need to legislate to create statutory neonatal leave and pay since I was elected to this place, so of course I am over the moon that the Bill from the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East will soon be sent to the other place and will be one step closer to finally becoming law. This Bill is personal for me: my son Sullivan was born two weeks prematurely, by emergency C-section. Sulley stopped breathing shortly after birth and spent two weeks fighting for his life in a neonatal intensive care unit. I will never forget the anxiety my husband and I experienced in those very long few weeks. In previous debates, I have shared with colleagues how, following Sulley’s birth, I was completely dependent on my husband while recovering. We were fortunate that my husband’s employer had a flexible approach to annual leave and he was able to take paid time off to support us. However, the thousands of new parents with babies who require neonatal care every single day of every year are often not so lucky.
As colleagues will know, a shocking one in seven newborn babies receive some sort of neonatal care. Paid neonatal leave, as this Bill would provide, ensures that parents can focus fully on being there with their new baby, without having the complicating pressures of worrying about work or finances. Those precious first days with a new baby are sacred, and for any baby in need of neonatal care this should be no different. The inflexibility of our current parental leave legislation serves only to worsen what is for many parents of babies in intensive neonatal care by far the most traumatic period of their lives—it does not have to be this way. So although it is welcome that we will likely finally see neonatal leave and pay enshrined in employment law, I must place on record my frustration that it has taken so long for us to have reached this point; I am afraid to say that there has been an absence of leadership on this issue from the Government. I am sure I do not need to remind the Minister that his Government made a manifesto commitment in 2019 to introduce neonatal leave and pay, and that this important modernisation of employment law for new mothers and fathers alike has had to be introduced by a colleague. It has not been introduced by those on the Government Front Bench, which suggests that this Government have been asleep at the wheel.
None the less, I am, of course, relieved that the Government have supported this Bill. I was not part of this Bill's Committee, but I am pleased that the Government appeared to work constructively with the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East to get this Bill to where it is today. But I cannot help but think of all the parents of babies in need of urgent neonatal care who will not benefit from this Bill, because for them it is already too late. This Bill will be a welcome addition to the statute book, but it is long overdue. I wish it every success in the other place, and, once again, I congratulate and commend the hon. Gentleman for his dedication to this vital work.
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