I am most grateful for that intervention. Amendment 48 would exempt pregnant women from all charges and penalties associated with Part 3, particularly with regard to health charges and concerns for landlords about having tenants who might not be legal migrants. I want to take pregnant women out of this picture.
I recognise the difficulties that the Government face in terms of immigration. I grew up in Hampstead but I have lived and worked near Bermondsey, and I know that for the people of Bermondsey and other similar areas there can be more challenges due to immigration than in places such as Hampstead, around schooling and access to the health service but particularly around housing. There are real concerns and the shortage of housing can be a cause of social tension.
This, too, is a knotty political question, but if the Government and Opposition could come to some consensus about how to provide enough social housing and affordable housing for our people, many of these tensions might be far less acute than they are today. I know that is a great challenge but it relates to this issue and the concerns of our people about migration.
Perhaps it is helpful to think about how maternity has a certain sacred association. If one wanders around the Sainsbury Wing and looks at the earliest paintings there, one sees paintings from the 13th century of the Madonna and child, and nativity scenes. Respect for
the mother and child during that very important period at the beginning of a family is at the heart of our Christian faith. It is not too surprising that France, Spain and Portugal—some of the Catholic countries—exempt pregnant women from any charges for accessing their health services. It points to the wisdom of the great faiths, as we increasingly realise how vital the very earliest months of a child’s life, from conception through the first two years of life, are to the successful later development of children.
Indeed, the right honourable Iain Duncan Smith did very important work concerning early intervention with families. Graham Allen MP, who worked with him in that endeavour, has set up the Early Intervention Foundation, which aims to raise awareness of the crucial period between conception and two years of age, and perhaps a little bit beyond that. Frank Field MP and Andrea Leadsom MP have set up the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Conception to Age Two—The First 1,001 Days, to really focus our minds on this crucial time in a child’s development. It takes several years for a child to grow into the physical stature of an adult but the brain is developing extremely rapidly in the first months of life and achieves its main development by age four. It is crucial to think carefully about how we treat mothers and their very young children.
I should have said something about newborns in my amendment. I talked only about pregnant women, but I hope that the Government will also think about mothers with newborn children within the first two years of life.
On several occasions I have had the privilege to speak to mothers in temporary accommodation through the Barnardo’s Families in Temporary Accommodation project. What came through particularly from their stories was the sense of isolation that they experienced and how difficult it was because of their temporary accommodation—they may be placed a long way from family or anybody of their ethnic group.
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My second amendment, Amendment 55, would exempt pregnant mothers so as to avoid a landlord fearing a penalty should they provide accommodation to a pregnant mother who is an illegal migrant. I spoke recently with a London landlord who has 180 tenants, 120 of whom are foreign. He is a spokesman for landlords and is well respected. He said to me, “Well, talking with my network, many of us will simply stop letting to people who speak with a foreign accent or who look foreign, just to be on the safe side”. My concern is that it will be harder for migrants to get access to accommodation. I think about the difficulties that mothers face when they are pushed into very poor accommodation. The more difficult one makes it to access accommodation, the more concern one might have that they will get the very poorest accommodation. I visited with a health visitor a few years back a mother in a house in multiple occupation in Walthamstow. This was a mother with a two to three month-old son. Her husband had abandoned her. She was from Africa. She had no neighbours or local community; she knew nobody. The only help to her was the local church. We visited for just 15 to
20 minutes. This woman was so vulnerable, so isolated. The health visitor did a tremendous job, but I am concerned that if we are not sensitive to the vulnerability of such women and their children we may isolate them further, make their lives even more difficult and undermine to some degree the very important relationship that they form with their young child.
Amendment 65 is just another way to stop charging from the NHS to pregnant mothers. It is so important that mothers engage early with the health service—I am sure that my noble friend Lord Patel will put this case eloquently. I visited the Albany Midwives service in south London some time ago. It works with mothers from the very earliest stages of their pregnancy. It was outstanding in that there was one midwife to one mother. They developed a relationship with a mother; they provided the antenatal care; and there was a beeper, so that when the mother came to give birth they were there for her and would support her after the birth. This gave rise to much improved breastfeeding rates in mothers and lower levels of surgical intervention. That example just illustrates how important is that ongoing relationship with the health service from an early stage. The concern is that the charges that might arise for them would perhaps undermine that contact with the health service. If there is a perception among mothers that if they approach the health service for help they might be drawn into issues around their nationality and their status of stay here, they may be less prone to do so. Assurances from the Minister on that point would be welcome. I look forward to his response.