I will not, because I have literally only a minute left and I want the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North to be able to respond.
There is no way I can talk about all hon. Members’ comments in the minute that I have left, but as I said in my response to the core of the petition, the Government believe that the entitlement to 52 weeks of maternity leave and 39 weeks of statutory maternity pay or maternity allowance is already very generous. I should perhaps add that those entitlements are provided to enable pregnant women and new mothers to prepare for and recover from birth and bond with their child.
We need to make sure that as we relax lockdown, there are new opportunities for new parents to spend their maternity, paternity, adoption and shared parental
leave in the way that they envisaged prior to the pandemic. The recent relaxations have been possible only because we took the difficult decision to introduce stringent social distancing measures, including lockdown. In fact, as we are now learning, we still need to be vigilant at maintaining social distancing, to protect lives.
In conclusion, may I thank the petitioners? We will continue to work on those first early years, to ensure that parents and children can get the support that they want.
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