Ms Stella Creasy
MP for Walthamstow · Labour (Co-op) · United Kingdom
“I thank the Foreign Secretary for his clear-sighted commitment not only to talk about a two-state solution, but to actually try to act to achieve it, as the only foundation of a safe Israel and a free Palestine.”
“Could he reassure the House that we will not acquiesce and bend to such pressure, and that the only action that could ever be acceptable to us to make us contemplate reversing this ban would be a halt on the E1 development and a permanent end to settler violence?”
“I start by paying tribute to the new Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi), for all the work she did on the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee on these issues. I know that she will do a brilliant job in this role.”
“I do not really understand the technology, but I know that he does, and I understand and share his fear accordingly. We come here today to debate this Bill because we all know that trust is a bygone issue in our politics.”
“We would welcome her having that conversation, which might be more illuminating than whether she is concerned about Zach Goldmsith’s leaflets. I add my support to the amendments tabled by my hon.”
“From today, if we do not take a stand with this Bill to tackle the ways that money has infiltrated our politics, the risk is that they will think we are acting in the interests of our own back pockets.”
The complete record
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“I congratulate the hon. Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) on securing this important debate. Like the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins), I had one of those difficult conversations this week, which I am sure many Members across the House have had, when I saw reports that the Facebook moderators had said that death threats towards members of the public who are in the public realm were acceptable. It is never easy, getting a death threat or a rape threat. I first started getting them in 2013, when I helped the campaigner, Caroline Criado Perez, to campaign to put Jane Austen on banknotes, and in the past eight years the situation has gone from bad to worse. Back then, it felt shocking. It was unusual. It was definitely a matter for the police. Now it is all too commonplace.”
“I urge the Government to use this legislative time for something more constructive, to work across the House, to recognise the concerns over violence against women and to uphold all our rights. We shall all regret it if they do not.”
“It could also have been an opportunity for the Government to recognise when they are at fault in the courts. Let me give just two examples. For the past three years, the Government have been found at fault by the courts on how they treat bereaved parents in this country and on how they treat victims of domestic violence who have a sanctuary room—they charge them the bedroom tax—but no measures have been brought forward. What respect for the courts does that show from a Government who are now seeking to reform those areas? Human rights mean little if they cannot be actioned and if they are not upheld, even when it goes against what appears to be the Government’s interests.”
“The public have to be able to tell us when we are getting something wrong. Sometimes that message is noisy and messy, but it is important that we do not seek to silence it no matter how uncomfortable it might make us feel. This legislation seeks to do that. The Bill also breaches that covenant between us and the public by what it does not contain. The hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke) does not quite understand the concern that there is no mention of women, but plenty of mention of statues. At a time when we are all concerned about the lack of action over tackling violence against women, this legislation could have been the perfect vehicle for the Government to implement the Law Commission’s recommendations on making misogyny a hate crime, but those measures are absent.”
“The trust between the police and women, particularly in London, has been broken—trust that many communities have not had in the police for some time—but this legislation will do little to heal those relationships. I will be honest: I have a long list of things that cause me “severe annoyance”. Some, Members may agree with; many, they probably would not. However, I pity the commanding officer trying to enforce this legislation if it becomes law and trying to explain decisions around severe annoyance. The legislation is simply unworkable. I am also ashamed to be part of a Parliament that is seeking to demonise a minority community in the measures being brought forward around Gypsy and Traveller communities—measures, indeed, that the police themselves have said they do not wish to see.”
“In any legislation, any of us on any of these Benches can always find some good, and this legislation is no different. For example, there are the measures on providing protection from being abused by adults in positions of trust and the measures on dangerous driving, as well as the increase in sentences for those who assault our emergency workers. However, this legislation is a curate’s egg, and what little good there is in it is overwhelmed and infected by the bad. It breaches the covenant between us in Parliament and the public about the consent that is part of a free, fair and equal society. All of us recognise that it is time for some reform of how public order is managed in this country. The scenes of chaos that we saw on Saturday are a clear embodiment of that.”
“A quarter of all police forces are either already actively recording or trialling recording where crimes are motivated by a hatred of somebody’s sex or gender. Where they do this, the police have better intelligence to track and prevent violence against women and women report more confidence in coming forward to report assaults and harassment. Will the Home Secretary and her Government drop their opposition to amendment 87B to the Domestic Abuse Bill tonight in the House of Lords in order to require that all police forces follow this best practice in England and Wales? That will finally put us on the road to equalising misogyny as a hate crime, as it should be.”
“However, there is no point raising money if we are not going to invest in people, and the mums of this country know that most of all. Those who became a mum in the past year are one and a half times more likely to have lost their job than a dad. Our childcare sector is crumbling, with 58% of nurseries saying they cannot make it to the end of the term, but the Chancellor said nothing. We have spent the last 10 years dealing with the outcome of not investing in the people of this country. I urge the Chancellor to rethink and not do that again.”
“The Government promised that nobody would lose their home as a result of covid, yet we know that half a million people are already in rent arrears, and the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have said nothing about that issue. We know that they plan to clobber nurses with a pay cut—because it is a pay cut when inflation is predicted to be 1.5%. It is going to cost us more, just as the bedroom tax did, because nurses are not daft. In London alone, we are paying £6 billion a year for agency staff, because we have NHS staff shortages. Nurses are going to work for agencies when they are not being paid properly. There is money there to be had. It is right that we look at corporation tax rates. It is right that we do more on capital gains tax—after all, there are people trading shares in UK companies through tax havens who are not paying it.”
“We have the fourth highest death rate from covid-19 out of 132 countries. As Sir Michael Marmot has said, that is at least in part down to the pre-existing poor health in poorer sections of our local communities. What a damning indictment of austerity. Coming out of the pandemic, we cannot afford to make the same mistakes again, but that is exactly what is about to happen. The universal credit cut will see 500,000 children dragged into poverty. It is a 7% cut in incomes. Some people might say that 7% is not very much, but if that is the difference between waving and drowning, that is the impact this Chancellor is going to have.”
“A decade ago, we were told that austerity was a necessary response to borrowing £158 billion, and we have spent 10 years arguing about the damage done as a result: cost-cutting measures that cost us more than they saved—the bedroom tax springs to mind—the sluggish productivity that we have not dealt with, and the inequality that has grown worse as a result of focusing not on investing in people and their potential but on trying to pick winners and losers. Now we are in a position where we are borrowing a figure double that and then some. The Chancellor tells us that he is being honest, but he is not being honest, and he is about to repeat the mistakes that were made in 2010. Austerity did not move our economy forward and it did not improve the lives of our local communities.”
“We want to outlaw the practice, to protect people from the harm and damage that it does. We know that it is possible to do that. Frankly, when countries such as China, Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Malta and even Samoa have a ban, we could have one in the UK, and quickly. As the debate shows, there is cross-party consensus for it, so I urge the Minister to use the energy from the debate and the support across civil society for action and not to delay further. Let us make Britain proud to be a world leader, for once, on some of those issues, rather than following the pack. Let us tell everyone in the community that we love them not for who they love but for who they are.”
“Let us put the argument to bed today. It is not a matter of free speech to cause someone harm in the way that conversion therapy does. It is also claimed that the matter is about a conflict with spirituality. There is no conflict with spirituality. I will not give a platform to the organisations that can be found, but I want to give a platform to the House of Rainbow and the Reverend Jide Macaulay, who is a proud member of the local community in Walthamstow and our local faith communities too. He teaches every single day that God loves you, not that God cares about who you love. Those are the organisations that we should be supporting. But we also need to send a clear message that it is not just about the medical side; it is simply about living in a better society.”
“We in this place need to send the clear message that we will not see the behaviour in question indulged. We will not see the question as one of medical ethics, but as about a progressive, inclusive society that bans practices that demean, belittle and discriminate against people. Where young people who are gay, lesbian, transgender or bi grow up in communities where they are not supported, they are eight times more likely to have attempted suicide, six times more likely to report depression and three times more likely to use illegal drugs. There are consequences of living in a society where what I am talking about is even a debate, in many different communities, but we know it is a live debate. Right now there are websites where people can go to book conversion therapy, and it is talked about as a matter of free speech.”
“To everyone who has spoken so far and given their personal experience: that is what Parliament at its best does. Like previous speakers, I want to take on some of the arguments about why conversion therapy should be made illegal. There has been a lot of focus on whether it works, as if there are any conditions in which such a therapy would be acceptable if it could be shown to be ethical. Many of the major bodies for psychotherapy in the UK have outlawed the practice and said that there is no semblance of an evidence base behind it. However, I believe that we have to make it illegal, to send the clear message that it is not about whether homosexuality is a pathology, because it is not. It is not about whether being trans is a pathology, because it is not. It is a part of who someone is.”
“It is easily done, Mr Gray; please do not worry. I am honoured to be able to take part in this incredibly important and powerful debate, which clearly has cross-party support. I start by paying tribute to the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) for the way he introduced the debate and, in particular, for centring the survivors of conversion therapy in his remarks. It is incredibly important in a debate like this to remember those whose voices may not yet be heard in this place, but for whom we need to speak. I also pay tribute to the journalist Patrick Strudwick and to Vicky Beeching, who have done amazing work uncovering and talking about their own personal experiences, bringing to the fore an understanding of how toxic this treatment is.”
“I know that the Secretary of State shares my concern that not every community is as confident as others about taking up the vaccine. That is why I know he will want to congratulate my local doctors, primary care networks and local church leaders in Walthamstow, who led a vaccine clinic last week in our community to help support the black and ethnic minority residents to take up the vaccine. He will also want to congratulate my doctors on being some of the highest performers in the country in terms of getting people to have their vaccine. Will he meet me to discuss what we can learn about this community-led approach to vaccination and how we can do more to help that outreach work bridge the gap between different communities in our country, so that nobody is left behind in this health challenge?”
“Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to participate in this debate and support the hard work of our Members of Parliament on this issue.”
“We also recognise our responsibility in this place to those young people that we ask, in these exceptional circumstances, to put themselves in the way of harm. The Bill certainly takes us much further towards having the protections in place that we would all wish, but we know that there is more work to do. I appeal to Ministers to continue to work with organisations such as Just for Kids Law, to listen to the concerns of not just the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden but Members across the House about where we might cut across international standards and welfare protections, and to recognise that the best states are those that protect everyone, including those people that we put in harm’s way, whether they are in our secret services or they are young people.”
“I make a plea to him today that the long-awaited code of practice be published—we were promised it during the passage of the Bill, but we have not yet seen it—and that we look at that much bigger concern about ensuring that there is always appropriate welfare and safeguarding protection for children of all ages, recognising that the United Nations and, indeed, this country have signed up to recognising children under the age of 18—so 16 and 17-year-olds—as children who require our protection. We need to extend the principles that we have put in this Bill regarding criminal activities to all their engagement. I think that everyone recognises that our security services and the police do a phenomenal job and work in some very difficult circumstances.”
“That reflects a bigger challenge that I hope the Minister will take up: that this legislation is obviously looking only at the use of criminal conduct authorisations, and yet what this debate has shown is that across the House and across the different sections of Parliament there is a concern about the use of children at all as covert intelligence sources.”
“Indeed, our argument that there should always be an appropriate adult as part of those conversations has certainly moved forward, as has our suggestion that IPCO should be overseeing this. Those are very welcome developments and it is important that we recognise that. There is an understanding that we need to go further in recognising that appropriate adults are not always part of these conversations and the discrepancies that that creates. If a child is arrested for shoplifting at the age of 16 or 17, there will always be an appropriate adult involved in their conversations with the police, but if a child is asked at the age of 16 or 17 to spy on their parents or to commit a criminal act as part of an investigation there might not always be an appropriate adult.”
“I hope that now that he has had time to look at this issue, he will reconsider what he said a couple of weeks ago when he suggested that some of our concerns and examples were not valid and could not have happened, not least because his colleague, Baroness Williams, has acknowledged that those very cases about vulnerable children aged 16 and 17 being exploited and then put at risk and used as covert intelligence sources were in fact real. With that in mind, I agree very much with the shadow Minister that the Bill is much improved and that the Government have moved on this issue. We now have in the Bill the exceptional circumstances principle—that we should only ever ask children to put themselves in harm’s way and to commit criminal acts in very exceptional circumstances.”
“In that sense, I also want to thank the Minister for Security for listening to our concerns and I wish him well in his recovery. I also pay tribute to the work of Just for Kids Law and JUSTICE, which have been phenomenal champions of the young people we are talking about today. I also thank the Minister in the other place, Baroness Williams, for her work and the Solicitor General before us today, who has had to step into this debate.”
“If we are honest, when this Bill first came to us, there was no discussion about children and what might happen if children were used as covert intelligence sources, so it is important that we recognise the work that they did to get us to this place, with the amendments before us. I also put on record my thanks to the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis). I do not know whether that is helpful to him, but I know that he is speaking after me. Certainly, it might be of concern to our Whips that I agree with much of what he has said with regard to this Bill. We share the concern that it is important to have the right legislation in place for these issues, because we know that covert intelligence sources are already being used.”
“I agree with the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) when he said that this Bill has been improved by the work that has been done across the two Houses of Parliament and across the Benches. With that in mind, I will start by acknowledging the work that has been done on the issue around the use of children—the concept of juvenile CHIS. I acknowledge the work of Baroness Kidron, Lord Russell, Lord Young and Lord Kennedy who led the debates and discussions on these issues in the other place, and they have brought us to a much better place as a result.”
“We must act for every woman to be able to take maternity leave. We must make sure that legislation such as that proposed by the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) is given time in this House, and we must stop IPSA prevaricating, as it has done for the past two years. We must give every woman in this place the same rights that we are giving the Attorney General. Please, Paymaster General, it is time for deeds not words when it comes to maternity and paternity.”
“No other MP has been able to have that, even though I know colleagues across the House who have had terrible experiences of being pregnant and trying to get support. We cannot say, “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” On that basis, let me be clear: the Government have made commitments today but, as the suffragettes said, this must be about deeds not words. Yes, Mr Deputy Speaker, you may be looking at me and thinking that during lockdown I have been attacking the pies a bit, and you would probably be right. But I am also pregnant with my second child. I am early on in my pregnancy. I should not have to reveal that, but I am doing so today to be clear to pregnant women around this country that they will find champions in this place, and it is not enough for us to act only for that small group of women at the top of our society.”
“Even in this Bill, we have yet to begin talking about fathers. The Bill tells the lie that I was told two years ago when I was pregnant and asked for a locum to cover work in my constituency, so that my constituents would not feel short-changed by having a woman of childbearing age as their MP. However, as MPs, our employment status was too complicated to enable us to act. If we can pass a Bill in a day in this place to address that issue, we could do so much more to ensure that our public life is open to all women. It is a missed opportunity not just for local government, but for the staff who have worked with us in this building, who have terrible maternity rights. Two years ago I fought for a locum.”
“In that context, to work only with that small number of women is not just a missed opportunity, but potentially sets up a two-tier system for maternity leave in this country. As the people who make the laws, we send such a message to businesses regarding how they should treat pregnant women at our peril. The Government are currently being taken to court by Pregnant Then Screwed because, when they calculated the self-employment income support scheme, they forgot about women who are self-employed and who took maternity leave. We have heard from many Members about our concerns for public life. It is not an accident that most women who enter public life, not just in this place but in local government and our Assemblies, tend to be older women who have already had children, or those who have chosen not to have them.”
“To benefit only a very small number of women at this time in this country’s life is to fail to recognise the peril that may come from this legislation, which is not about its drafting but its scope. We are sending a message that maternity leave should be a perk conferred by an employer as a benefit—just as a company car would be—if we only pass this legislation. The Paymaster General said that the Prime Minister believes it is wrong that a woman might have to leave work to care for a child, but in truth that is happening in workplaces across the country, and it involves thousands of women. During the pandemic, one in four women who are pregnant or a new mum have said that they have faced discrimination, and that they are losing their jobs or being furloughed.”
“It is an honour to be part of the debate and the work that we are doing to bring forward this legislation. Let me congratulate the Attorney General, the right hon. and learned Member for Fareham (Suella Braverman), and wish her well in her forthcoming maternity leave. What is so powerful about this legislation is not just the clarity over her income but the clarity about her actual cover: she will be able to spend time with her child and not receive calls at three o’clock in the morning when the Attorney General is needed. I welcome the Paymaster General’s comment that we need to do more. It is that which I wish to speak on particularly, because, as she has recognised, the Bill benefits only a very small number of women.”
“I want to put that on the record, because I think that should be part of an equality impact assessment where I believe the discrimination is against those of us who are pregnant, and there are human rights elements of this. But we cannot be blind, either, to the message that this legislation, in the way it is crafted, will send to our sisters in local government and regional Assemblies, or indeed to our sisters who are employees of this House.”
“This legislation seeks to do that, and I recognise that. That is why I will support it, and why I think it is the right thing to do. However, as the Paymaster General herself said, this legislation does that for a maximum of 115 women. In a society of 70 million people, that cannot be enough. That cannot be the message that we send from Parliament. That is why it is important that we have an equality impact assessment of this legislation, and that we recognise that it does not take place in a vacuum, but in an unequal society where women who are pregnant face discrimination. We see that in our public life. We have already talked about this place briefly, and I do want to return to that, because I think it is important. I acknowledge that the Paymaster General has recognised the timetable that I am setting her.”
“She spoke today about the importance of equality impact assessments. New clause 1 is about exactly why that matters. Obviously, we usually expect those assessments to be done for any form of Government legislation, because we recognise that we cannot be blind to the consequences of legislation for different sections of our society. We have an Equality Act in this country and we protect certain characteristics for a reason, because we know that not everyone in our society faces a level playing field. Pregnancy is a protected characteristic for just that reason—to enable us to say, “Actually, in our society in 2021, women who are pregnant in our communities face discrimination.” We recognise that if we address the challenges that they face and remove those barriers, we shall all benefit.”
“I said in my earlier contribution that one of the things I thought was missing from the debate was a recognition of the legislation that she has proposed to try to help women facing redundancy in pregnancy, and to make real the promise, which I think we all expect for our constituents, that we will not make someone who is pregnant redundant. As we know, even before the pandemic, 50,000 women a year were facing that situation. I think about the narrow scope of this Bill and contrast it with what her Bill could do for thousands of women in this country. If she is able to bring it forward, she will have my support. I also want to thank the current Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), who is doing an amazing job.”
“I take the point that the Paymaster General is making when she says that this is not a perk, but I think it is quite difficult to make that argument when faced with another Member of the House who is in exactly the same position as the Attorney General but will be unable to access the maternity leave that we have all agreed it is important that new mums should be able to access. I want to put on the record my support for the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves). If Members have not read her books, trying to correct the record of the absence of our understanding of what women parliamentarians have done, they really should. I also want to mention the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller).”
“and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman); my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), who was a trailblazer in her time and continues to fight for women’s rights; my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper); and, indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Feryal Clark), who spoke bravely and set out her own fears for what would happen. That is one of the tests we must face in this place.”
“I rise to speak to a number of amendments. Before I do so, I will acknowledge some Members across the House who have done such amazing work in raising issues of equality when it comes to pregnancy and maternity in this place. I believe there is a high degree of cross-party consensus that we need to act. I also put on the record my support for the many men who have spoken today about the importance of fathers. Let me be clear: there will be no equality for pregnant women and new mums until fathers are able to step up and equally do their bit. It is not a zero-sum game; it is about parents being able to support each other, and the importance to women’s equality of not being left literally holding the baby. Let me put on the record my thanks for the work of my right hon.”
“I always knew that the hon. Gentleman and I would eventually find common cause, even if we have disagreed on other human rights issues. He is right; we have a leadership role to play. Indeed, I would argue that this is leading legislation, because we know that in other Administrations there are not formal maternity provisions. That is why it is so frustrating that we are missing this opportunity to go further and help our colleagues.”
“As I discovered with my first child, those pockets of sleep for two-and-a-half to three hours—the point at which I saw coffee as a medicinal substance to keep going—were in the first few weeks and months after childbirth. It is absolutely right that we work to protect the family life of any woman giving birth, so that she has that time to bond with her child and to properly take time out, but we cannot do that in this job if there is nobody fulfilling the role that we are doing. It is the same for a local councillor and the same in our Assemblies. That is the challenge that we are facing here, and why it is so important that we assess the impact of this legislation.”
“I completely agree with my hon. Friend. The challenge that she is speaking to is the same as the one that the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) spoke to with regard to his member of staff. The Bill is not just about pay, but actual cover. As I said earlier, it is the commitment that the current Attorney General will not get an immediate phone call saying, “We know you are on leave, but we need you because of X.” Somebody else will be formally overseeing that role. It is not by accident that when I was pregnant, I thought about what I wanted to do for my community. It was not about money, but about being conscious that if I had been awake for two or three hours at a time, I probably would not be as useful to my constituents as someone who could focus fully on the job.”
“If someone came to us in our constituency offices and said, “This is the experience in my workplace”, we would say, “Well, that’s clearly breaching various regulations. We must support you. We must get you trade union representation.” I am very proud of the trade unions, which I know have made representations on this issue already.”
“If we want to ensure that there is no trade-off between family life and public life for either men or women, we must look at the message we are sending. The honest truth is that this legislation, as it stands, sends a message that a two-tier system is acceptable. Consider for a moment what would happen were we to look at local government and say, “Well, it’s okay for just cabinet members in local government to have maternity leave”. We would be horrified for young female councillors, or indeed for young men who want to be good fathers and spend time with their children, and want to be supportive partners, yet that is exactly what we are doing here. Frankly, in no other workplace would this be acceptable.”
“We all talk about wanting to get more diverse people into our politics. Sometimes the barriers to that are blindingly obvious. I know from talking to colleagues in local government just how frustrated they are. I know from talking to colleagues in other devolved Administrations just how frustrated they are. When we pass legislation in this House, such as this Bill, we cannot be blind to the message that we are sending about how we have determined who is important enough to have that leave. If we think that is not something that should be bestowed as a discretionary pleasure, or as a benefit like a company car, then we also have to recognise the consequences of behaving like that, not just here but in other places as well.”
“Nobody in my constituency batted an eyelid about having someone else not just doing casework, but out there representing our community, working with groups, going into local schools before lockdown happened, and then when the lockdown happened, leading on that role. Watching the hon. Lady being abused and attacked, and watching her also trying to cope with those first few weeks of having a new baby alone, fired my enthusiasm on this. We cannot sit around in this place, watching as other people get those issues right, but failing to take action ourselves. It is not by accident that the number of times pregnant women end up in this place, or in local government or in the Assemblies, are few and far between. That is one issue that an equality impact assessment can take a look at.”
“I completely agree with the hon. Lady. At this point I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie), who found herself being abused because she was on maternity leave. She was also abused by members of my own party. I remonstrated with them, pointing out that that was not the progressive approach to take. My concern about the hon. Member for Stroud, and why the legislation is a missed opportunity, is that she sought to get cover. She was an MP who, like me, tried to get a locum. I had a fantastic locum. In fact, my locum, Kizzy Gardiner, was too good. People in Walthamstow were desperate to keep her, because she was an absolutely fantastic example of why maternity cover matters.”
“But, as ever, the pace of change is glacially slow—for me, literally, because yet again I find myself in a position where I cannot be confident of what I can say to my community to answer the question posed by the member of staff of the hon. Member for Strangford: “What cover will there be?” I cannot even look my own staff in the eye because of the lack of cover that we offer staff in this place. If nothing else, that makes us terrible employees. This legislation gives the lie that this is an independent matter. I have been told for the last two years that MPs’ employment status meant that it was impossible. Indeed, it says on the IPSA website: “MPs as independent office holders are not employees and are therefore not eligible for statutory maternity, paternity or adoption leave.””
“She talked about a timetable. Let me be clear why that timetable matters. I said earlier that I have a direct discrimination case, and I think that an equality impact assessment could look at this issue. She will have seen that the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority has come out today and said, “Yes, we’re going to consult”, and it is having a meeting again today. That is all very welcome. I recognise that the new chair of IPSA takes a very different approach from the previous administration. I have worked on these issues for the last two years and I wrote to IPSA before the last election, begging it to come out and say that it was at least looking at these concerns so that nobody of childbearing age would be deterred from standing in the election, but it refused to do so, so it is welcome that there is movement.”
“That means that they take the hit on their career and on their incomes, and we do not get the fathers’ involvement in children that we all want to support. Why are we sending the message that we are not even talking about ministerial paternal paid leave and therefore ensuring that fathers can be part of it? The Paymaster General said that it is already covered in existing provisions. That is because it is only two weeks. In the first two weeks post birth, parents are lucky if they see daylight and are able to go outside—or, indeed, to wear clean clothes, if I remember correctly—so having more time with their child is crucial. I want to look particularly at what this legislation means for Parliament. The Paymaster General has pointed out that she gets this and she understands that we have to go much further, and I believe her.”