My Lords, it is a pleasure to sponsor the Bill in your Lordships’ House. I thank Stuart McDonald MP for steering the Bill so effectively through the other place. It has already achieved a minor miracle in uniting the Scottish National Party and the Conservative Party, as well as gaining cross-party support in the other place. I pay tribute to all those who have spoken so passionately and sensitively about
their personal experiences of children born prematurely, including Luke Hall MP and David Linden MP. I give thanks to the APPG on Premature and Sick Babies.
I am enormously grateful to Bliss and other charities that provide vital support to parents of premature and sick babies in their time of need, and which have provided me with advice on the Bill. I want in particular to mention Tom and Anna, who are now both employees of Bliss, who came to see me and told me their personal stories and how they had been inspired to work to help other parents. It is not always easy to talk about these painful experiences, but I want to be clear that all who have campaigned for the Bill can take pride in seeing it come to fruition.
I am grateful to everyone who has put their name down to speak today, and to see such wide-ranging expertise from across the House. I know that this is a far-reaching, highly important and deeply personal issue for many here today, and I am sure we will have a very thoughtful debate.
The Office for National Statistics reports that an estimated 100,000 babies every year are admitted to neonatal care in the UK following their birth. Neonatal care is the type of medical or palliative care that a baby who was born prematurely or sick receives. Many of these babies spend prolonged periods of time on a neonatal care unit in a hospital as a result of being born prematurely or with other health conditions.
We know how incredibly worrying and stressful a time that is for parents. They of course want to get on and focus their attention on getting through this period, supporting their family, each other and their baby or babies. Unfortunately, though, some may end up with concerns about their ability to do so and to keep their jobs. Fathers, if eligible, get only two weeks of statutory paternity leave, and when that runs out they might be called back to work while their baby is still in hospital. For babies who have an extended stay to stay in hospital at the start of their lives, mothers report that the 39 weeks of paid maternity leave does not give them enough time. A large portion of that can be used up while their baby is in neonatal care, leaving them feeling that they do not have enough time at home with their baby before having to go back to work. It is important always to have at the front of our minds that children in neonatal care often have significant health or developmental issues that require specialist medical attention, which means that this does not end up being a usual form of maternity leave. I have heard at first hand that some parents even choose to leave work as a result.
The successful passage of the Bill will realise an important commitment from the Government to create a new statutory leave and pay entitlement for the parents of babies receiving neonatal care. That means that employed parents who find themselves in this desperate situation in future will know that, as a minimum, they are entitled to time off work to care for their babies and that they will not suffer detriment from their employer as a result.
Protected time off from work for parents who find themselves in this position is crucial. We know that there are some brilliant supportive and flexible employers out there, and I commend them and encourage others
to follow their lead. Business representative organisations, including the CBI, have expressed their support for the plan to introduce neonatal care leave and pay. Employee retention has been identified as a key benefit of family-related leave policies, including neonatal care leave and pay and engagement with employer representatives. This is the right thing to do for families and for the labour market.
I will outline the key components of the Bill. It consists of three clauses and a Schedule. The main provisions of the Bill are found in the Schedule, which creates a statutory entitlement to neonatal care leave, creates a statutory entitlement to neonatal care pay and makes consequential amendments to other legislation, including adding references to neonatal care leave and pay where relevant. Neonatal care leave and pay will be available to each employed parent of babies who are admitted into neonatal care up to the age of 28 days and who have a continuous stay in hospital, or in other specified care settings, of seven full days or more. Neonatal care leave will be a day-one right, meaning that it will be available to an employee from their first day in a new job.
Statutory neonatal care pay, like other family-related pay rights, will be available to those employees who meet continuity of service and minimum earnings tests. I expect it to be paid at the statutory rate, currently £156.66, or 90% of the employee’s average wages—whichever is lower. This amount is usually uprated in line with increases to statutory payments.
As the Government have already set out in their response to the consultation on neonatal leave, the intention is that the total amount of statutory neonatal care leave available to parents will be capped at a maximum of 12 weeks; that will be one week for every week their child spends in neonatal care. This will be set out in the regulations under the Bill.
This leave will be protected. Those exercising the right to leave will have legal protection against being subjected to any detriment for doing so, consistent with other family-related leave entitlements such as paternity, maternity and adoption leave. It is worth your Lordships noting that this Bill is constructed to be in harmony with these other related entitlements.
Neonatal care leave will be flexible, allowing employees to take leave either when their child is receiving neonatal care or after that period. This means that fathers who have only two weeks of paternity leave may want to take their neonatal care leave while their child is still in neonatal care. However, mothers will be able to add it to the end of their maternity leave and other forms of parental leave that they may be entitled to. This is because, once maternity leave commences, a mother cannot stop it in order to take neonatal care leave, or else she will lose her remaining maternity leave.
With that in mind, the Bill provides for the window of time within which neonatal care leave can be taken to be set out in regulations. This window will be a minimum of 68 weeks following the child’s birth, as this ensures that mothers and fathers have sufficient time to take their neonatal care leave alongside other leave rights that they may be entitled to, rather than having to lose out on any such entitlements.
Eligibility for neonatal care leave and pay will be detailed in regulations but must be based on a parental or other personal relationship with the child in neonatal care. This is to ensure that the definition can be kept up to date to accommodate changing family dynamics.
Your Lordships will no doubt have noticed that there are a number of delegated powers in this Bill. We spend a lot of time, quite rightly, in this House talking about being clear about the need for delegated powers and how they will be used. The powers in this Bill mirror, in so far as is possible, the approach in existing family-related leave and pay entitlement legislation. Such powers have been on the statute book for some time and are well understood by employers and the legal community. A similar approach was taken most recently in the Parental Bereavement (Leave and Pay) Act 2018, which was also a Private Member’s Bill. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee’s report of 2 February had no concerns with the delegated powers process in the Bill. It said:
“There is nothing in this private member’s Bill which we would wish to draw to the attention of the House.”
I hope that gives noble Lords adequate reassurance on this matter.
We have an opportunity here to make a real difference to the lives of those who seek to rely on this entitlement in the future. I hope that, with the support of your Lordships, we can deliver legislation that parents who have been through a stressful time while having a baby in neonatal care, and the charities which work tirelessly to support them, can celebrate. I beg to move.
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