Dr Scott Arthur

IN THEIR OWN WORDS

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782 held · 637 searchable for Dr Scott Arthur. The searchable lines are below in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 8 of 10.

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1. “Greg helped him to rebuild communication with his child’s mother, and eventually she agreed to add him to the birth certificate, granting him parental rights and more stable access to his daughter. Euan then joined the dads and dice group, where he built friendships and confidence. In his own words: “Attending Dads Rock’s dads night has me bonding with other dads and having a laugh.” That is very important in life, with or without dad jokes. That is what meaningful, compassionate support for men looks like. It changes lives and strengthens families. Dads Rock is not the only organisation doing this vital work. I pay tribute to Dr Ian Hounsome, whom I met in my office recently. Ian recently received a well-deserved award from Napier University for his extraordinary work supporting Andy’s Man Club.”

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2. “Its WhatsApp peer support group now brings together more than 700 dads from across the country. In its most recent survey, the top request from those fathers was for stronger mental health support, particularly for new dads. We see the power of Dads Rock in stories like that of Euan, a young dad in his 20s in Edinburgh South West. He came to Dads Rock struggling with anxiety, isolation and difficulties maintaining contact with his eight-month-old child, after a separation from her mother. He was not included on the birth certificate, meaning that he had no parental rights, and as a result he felt overwhelmed and unsure about where to turn. With one-to-one support from Greg, one of the Dads Rock workers, Euan received guidance through a confusing and emotional court process.”

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3. “This debate is a chance to speak honestly about the pressures, expectations and challenges that too many men carry alone and in silence. My hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury) exemplified all that in his speech, and I thank him for it. Across my constituency, there are organisations large and small supporting men and dads. One of them is Dads Rock, which has become a vital source of support for fathers at every stage of parenting. When I was elected last year, one of the first people to contact me was from Dads Rock, making it clear to me that I had to support the Dad Shift campaign. I do not just have a dad joke, but a Scottish dad joke. There are 10 cows in a field, but which one is on holiday? Anyone? It is the one with a wee calf. [ Laughter. ] Thank you, thank you, but back to the Dad Shift.”

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4. “Giving children access to a variety of books and stories from a young age helps to create a cohesive and integrated community. From a library in Edinburgh, a child can read stories about any country around the world, by authors from any country around the world. Nurturing children’s understanding of their global role as citizens is central to UNESCO’s aims. Literature fosters a child’s pride in their home, and understanding and compassion for those who come from elsewhere. Finally, I want to talk about another UNESCO site, which is right at the edge of Edinburgh—the Forth bridge, or the Forth railway bridge to some. It stands in such splendour today only because of the work of Tam Dalyell in this place and of my former colleague Professor Roland Paxton, who both fought to make sure it was preserved in excellent condition.”

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5. “In my constituency, I have Oxgangs, Wester Hailes, Fountainbridge, Balerno, Colinton, Currie, Sighthill and even the mobile library system. The reason we have such great libraries in Edinburgh is partly down to the work of my good friend Val Walker, both before she became a councillor and after she was elected. Sadly, she died a few months ago, but the libraries in our city are a fantastic legacy to her. I am proud that the Government have committed to delivering a library in every primary school in England, giving children the best start to life and enriching their learning. I hope to see a similar commitment in Scotland, where around a quarter of schools have no designated library space. That is absolutely shameful.”

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6. “The book is called “From the Soviet Gulag to Arnhem”, and it is a fantastic story; it reminds us that some immigrants came to our country to save it. I know that Nicholas’s parents, Isobel and Henry Kinloch, are very proud of him. With the knowledge of this fantastic literary legacy—both Nicholas’s and others—we must continue to push forward with literacy across the country. I recently met the Edinburgh City of Literature Trust, which works across Edinburgh to engage people with our literary history and has reached an audience of at least 235,000 people since 2004. It emphasised the importance of literature in our civic life as not just a luxury but an essential public good. For the trust, UNESCO status is not an award but an obligation to further the aims of UNESCO. Central to the public good in my city are libraries.”

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7. “In my constituency, the legacy of Robert Louis Stevenson, the writer of “Treasure Island”, also lives on. One of his poems is preserved on the walls of Colinton tunnel in a fantastic mural. He travelled through that tunnel each summer to visit his grandfather, who was a minister at Colinton parish church. Every year, thousands come to the city to take part in the Edinburgh international book festival and to enjoy the city’s rich literary history. We also have the Pentlands book festival, which runs each year in my constituency. One of the books recently featured is by author Nicholas Kinloch. It is a non-fiction book and tells the story of how his grandfather travelled from Poland to the UK in the second world war and eventually fought in Arnhem.”

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8. “UNESCO’s founding aim was to preserve “the intellectual and moral solidarity of mankind.” As we have heard, its founders recognised that ignorance of the positive differences between us can lead to conflict. Engaging with literature can help us celebrate those differences. In 2004, Edinburgh became the world’s first UNESCO city of literature. Since then, 52 other cities have followed and earned the same title, but I am proud that Edinburgh led the way. Our city has a rich literary history of great fiction writers, including Arthur Conan Doyle, Muriel Spark, whose statute will be the first of a woman in Princes Street Gardens—there are more statues of animals in Edinburgh than there are of women, which is quite a bizarre situation—and Kenneth Grahame. All those people called my city their home.”

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9. “What a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Jonathan Davies) for so ably introducing the debate. The old and new towns of Edinburgh are designated a UNESCO world heritage site. My constituency includes just a small corner of the UNESCO designated area, but the beauty of the city centre’s historical legacy is appreciated by all in my constituency. UNESCO’s 80 years of work to preserve the world’s heritage involves global art, monuments and even our oceans. I want to take this opportunity to talk about its work on literature preservation—something my English teacher might be surprised to hear.”

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10. “On 29 July, the Scottish Government were asked when they last proactively contacted the UK Government about the operation of the Mossmorran site, but they could not name a date, and going back to 2020 there was no evidence of any proactive engagement. We have heard bluster from the SNP this evening. Have the Scottish Government approached a Minister with any kind of coherent plan to support these workers or save the plant?”

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11. “I grew up just four or five miles from the plant, and I have to say that it is an area still recovering from Thatcher’s economic vandalism. I thank the Minister for his statement and for the work he has done over many months, as well as my hon. Friend the Member for Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy (Melanie Ward) for her work. She stands in solidarity with these workers, and we should stand in solidarity with her, no matter which party we are from. On 1 September we learned that it had been almost a year since any Minister from the Scottish Government had contacted the management team at Mossmorran—almost a year. It had been four years since any Minister from the Scottish Government had contacted the Scottish Environment Protection Agency or the Health and Safety Executive about the management of the site.”

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12. “I thank the hon. Gentleman for bringing this petition to the House. On what analysis does he base his comment that people are more likely to be in prison for a social media tweet than for rape?”

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13. “Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) shows that our judiciary act when faced with criminal online threats of violence. Does anybody want to say that they oppose that gentleman being jailed for five years? Of course not. Freedom of speech is central to our democracy. I understand that all our police forces face stretched resources, but those who incite violence on our streets against vulnerable people can never go unchallenged, whether it is online or in person.”

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14. “The Crown Prosecution Service is clear that the state must act when there is a clear threat to public order and safety—online or in the real world. Employment law applies to online. Thankfully, we have procedures in place to protect children from online harm. Fraud is a crime online, as is defamation of character. So I do not understand why people argue that racially motivated hatred should not be covered by a law online, when it is in the real world. Why should we be able to say something online that we would not say in the pub? It is utterly unbelievable that people put that argument forward —it is unacceptable. It is right that these things apply across our society. The recent case of the man imprisoned for making threats towards the hon.”

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15. “We know that the internet is a challenging and complex place, but when posts tip over into threatening communications, inciting violence against specific groups, provisions must be in place for prosecution. Opposition Members argue that prison sentences are given for comments that were maybe mistaken or intended as humorous. But we know that for some of the people who were imprisoned, this was merely one of many racially motivated comments that they had made over a period of time. Opposition Members called these posts foolish, clumsy or misunderstood, yet many of those people actually pled guilty to inciting racial hatred. Let us be clear: the posts that led to prosecution were an incitement to violence and outright racial hatred, which is why those people pled guilty.”

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16. “But it is clear that the fury we witnessed was encouraged by online instigators, who stirred racial tensions and spread false information before the public had a true and complete understanding of what had occurred that awful day—just as we saw a couple of weekends ago after the attack on the London North Eastern Railway train, when people online were quick to link it to immigration and also to Islam, which I found utterly unbelievable. By the time a statement was made to the House of Commons, we knew there was no link to immigration or Islam, so there were no Reform MPs in the Chamber to talk about it—an utter disgrace. As MPs, we have all had our fair share of online abuse and unpleasant comments, although I absolutely recognise the point made earlier about women attracting much more of that abuse than men.”

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17. “What we are talking about are posts that contain elements of racial hatred, which is completely unacceptable and is not a political issue—unless we are arguing that somehow racial hatred is a political philosophy. Last summer, we saw tragic violence right across the UK. I think Edinburgh was spared only through the hard work over many years of the Edinburgh Interfaith Association. We saw British people attacked because of their faith or the colour of their skin—utterly reprehensible. I spoke to parents who were worried about their children —of all ages—going to school or going to work. It was an horrendous time, and the violence was being amplified and accelerated online. Many of those who carried out those violent acts argued that their actions were solely in response to the tragic events that occurred in Southport.”

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18. “What a pleasure it is to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Roger. I thank the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) for so ably introducing the debate. Although the hon. Member for Guildford (Zöe Franklin) described her speech as being a little off-piste, I thank her for raising an important subject—she is welcome to raise it in any debate I am part of. The only two-tier justice system I know of in the UK is between the rich and the poor, and between the powerful and the powerless. That is why I am so pleased we have been able to introduce the Hillsborough law. What we are not talking about here are posts that arise from differences of political opinion: whether rail should be nationalised, or whether we should invest more money in the NHS.”

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19. “I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman’s summing up; he is doing a great job. Those numbers invite some further investigation. Thirty per day does sound like quite a lot of arrests, but in how many cases was the communication the sole reason for the arrest? Was it just a matter of there being many other factors combined, and that was just one point in the arrest schedule?”

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20. “This is a serious point. People who are worried about the financial situation in the country will save rather than spend, whether they are private individuals or business. But is not the very aim of this debate to fuel that speculation and make people feel more anxious?”

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21. “I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. My home town is Kirkcaldy, and a former MP for Kirkcaldy is Gordon Brown, of course. In the Blair-Brown Government, he did a lot of work to cut child poverty, which is something I am really proud of, and he cut pensioner poverty as well. Conservative Members should be absolutely ashamed of what they did to child poverty in the UK. I and my colleagues on these Benches, I am sure, will do everything we can to reduce child poverty—including, I hope, removing the two-child cap.”

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22. “It will be very brief. The hon. Gentleman has mentioned tickets. As he will know, a Scottish Government Cabinet Secretary used a limousine to attend football matches. Surely that does not sit easily with him. Let me also point out that his party’s Government are running Scotland via Holyrood, and things have not always been above board there. I am thinking particularly about very senior members of his party deleting text messages relating to the covid inquiry, which was an absolute disgrace. Will he join me in condemning that action?”

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23. “It was not until I became a university lecturer and encountered kids with a proper diagnosis that I started to understand the condition and how it affected me. I developed coping strategies that enabled me to try to sit my higher English at evening college. I did succeed, but it was not a journey I entirely enjoyed. As a university lecturer, I met students who had been really well supported at school, and that had helped them to reach their full potential. I taught civil engineering, a subject that often attracted students with good mathematical skills but perhaps not the best English skills. I also encountered students who had not been diagnosed at school, and it was not until their first set of exams that they started to be flagged as needing extra support.”

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24. “What a privilege it is to serve under you today, Ms Butler. I thank the hon. Member for Yeovil (Adam Dance) for introducing this debate, alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Juliet Campbell). As others have noted, dyslexia affects around 10% of the UK population, with 4% experiencing severe dyslexia. Up to 80% of children with the condition leave school without a diagnosis or the support they need to reach their full potential. When I was at school, dyslexia was understood even less than it is now. I was one of those kids who took a long time to progress through English. Some people might not be surprised to hear that it took me three attempts to pass my O-grade English, which was Scotland’s equivalent of O-level English.”

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25. “He is still a great person, though. In Edinburgh we are lucky to have organisations such as HealthCare in Mind stepping in to help parents in Edinburgh South West to secure a recognised diagnosis, so that their children can finally access the support they deserve. But receiving a diagnosis and the associated help should not be down to a postcode lottery. It should come early enough in a child’s life to allow them to adapt their style of learning and make the most of their school experience. A recent survey by Dyslexia Scotland showed that dyslexia is still widely misunderstood. Many parents, and I dare say some teachers, still think it is something that children can grow out of, that it affects only boys, that it is about eyesight, or that children can overcome it if they just try harder.”

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26. “Absolutely. Particularly if the condition is not understood, they just assume—let us face it—that they are not the smartest kid in the class, whereas often the opposite is true. Through working with dyslexic students in my job as a lecturer, I know they are often real problem solvers, as we have heard, and systems thinkers able to see the bigger picture. Once they had a diagnosis, we were able to support them in their studies. I worked in the sector for a long time. I started lecturing in the late ’90s, and when staff back then discussed dyslexia we had spectacularly uninformed debates about the condition. I remember one well-intentioned colleague talking about his hope that a student could shake off dyslexia by the time they left university. If only that had been possible, that lecturer would be world renowned by now.”

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27. “Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton), we have a strategy in Scotland, but when we compare what is happening in Scotland, where we have is a strategy, with what is happening in England, where we do not, there is not a substantial difference. If we are going to agree a strategy, we have to ensure that it is properly funded and that there is real accountability for ourselves, for parents and, most particularly, for young people, to make sure they get the maximum benefit from it.”

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28. “I hope that the confirmation of dyslexia’s biological basis can help to reduce the stigma, alongside fantastic campaigns like Dyslexia Scotland’s “Busting myths” initiative. By challenging the stigma, equipping educators and supporting young people early, we can ensure that children with dyslexia are not left behind. By understanding early intervention and proper support, we can transform thousands of young lives throughout the UK and help them to reach their full potential. I want to end by talking about strategies. The idea of agreeing today to take forward a strategy is fantastic, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe for proposing it. As we heard from my hon.”

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29. “Absolutely. I became very good at avoiding being given the pen to write on the whiteboard at school, and that was a coping strategy. As we have heard, at the heart of the differences in diagnosis is a real inequality. We are all here, from all parties, to reduce inequality, and it makes absolute sense to focus that lens on dyslexia. We have a duty to try to bring justice for everyone affected by dyslexia. I am proud that researchers from the University of Edinburgh are leading groundbreaking work to help to us better understand and identify dyslexia at an early stage. The university’s recent study involved over 1.2 million people—probably people from the constituencies of everyone here today—and identified 36 new gene regions linked to dyslexia, confirming it as a neurodevelopmental brain difference.”

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30. “But we also have to see this debate as an opportunity to support the hospitality sector and improve public health. These are three really important things, and I do not envy the Minister in trying to reach a balance between them.”

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31. “This is at the heart of so many pubs feeling the strain, because it is so much cheaper for people to drink at home than in pubs and other venues. Hospitality is a massive employer in the UK, and it is under huge stress. We need to look at taxation of alcohol right across the board to make sure that we are benefiting that sector while also reducing harmful drinking at home. An effective alcohol duty can support many of these jobs by closing the gap between the prices in pubs and supermarkets. That, in turn, encourages people to drink—hopefully, British-produced alcohol—publicly, which is far safer than consumption in private. It is right that we take time to thoroughly consider alcohol duty, and make sure that it works for our wine industry and for businesses like the North British Distillery in my constituency.”

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32. “Many people active in this sector look back to when Alistair Darling was Chancellor in the UK, and the changes that he made to the alcohol duty regime and how that directly related to improved health outcomes for people. That is something that we can learn from. I am always proud to say that I followed him, although there was someone between us, as MP for Edinburgh South West. Alongside an effective duty system, it is also right that we encourage drinking in as safe an environment as possible, while supporting our hospitality industry. During a meeting with the Institute of Alcohol Studies last month, I was told that freezes in alcohol duty disproportionately benefit the sale of alcohol in shops, allowing supermarkets to maintain lower prices in comparison with hospitality venues.”

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33. “For example, the World Cancer Research Fund told me that alcohol-related breast cancer can be caused even by low levels of consumption of high-strength alcoholic drinks. Reducing the strength of alcoholic drinks can reduce the likelihood of this type of cancer. I have to say, they told me about this at the Labour party conference in Liverpool—not the best place to give people advice on drinking a little bit less. That is why I feel that a well-designed minimum unit pricing system across the UK is worth considering, alongside a meaningful and well-structured alcohol duty regime, but I understand some of the concerns around minimum unit pricing of alcohol.”

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34. “They told me that in Scotland in 2024, a total of 1,185 alcohol-specific deaths were registered. That was the lowest number registered since 2019—something that we should celebrate. It is perhaps, in least in part, due to minimum unit pricing of alcohol in Scotland, but it still shows the damage that excessive alcohol consumption can do, and it remains too high in Scotland and elsewhere. By choosing to consume lower strength alcohol, we can continue to enjoy drinking and the benefits that it brings us on social occasions, while also addressing the harms caused by alcohol. I welcome the fact that the Government are looking quite seriously to meet their commitment to label alcohol, just as we did as a country with cigarettes, to make people more aware of some of the risks that come with drinking.”

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35. “I am not here to lecture anyone—I enjoy a drink, like everybody else—but I am a real advocate of awareness of the implications of consuming alcohol. I am concerned about four things, really. I think that drinks are getting stronger; that has certainly been the case in my lifetime, and it is to the detriment of the taste of some wines. We are drinking more at home post covid, and that has real health implications. I also have to say that I am eating more crisps at home as well post covid. [ Laughter. ] It is a serious point, actually. Our hospitality industry is under huge pressure, and this impacts on the vibrancy of our high streets. We have a duty to ensure that the public are aware of the risks of drinking. Recently, I met representatives from Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems.”

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36. “I am proud to have the North British Distillery, one of Scotland’s oldest and largest Scotch grain whisky producers, in my constituency; I would be in trouble if I did not mention it. I hope that any consideration to changes on alcohol duty covers the whole of the industry in the UK, rather than just one part of it. As much as I want these industries to thrive, and I absolutely do, we must be conscious of alcohol’s public health implications. It is our responsibility to find the right balance, with an alcohol duty that works for businesses, as we have heard, but that also supports public health. We need an alcohol duty system that works for our wine industry, supports the hospitality sector and improves public health. I shall talk about informed moderation when it comes to drinking.”

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37. “What a pleasure it is to serve under you this evening, Mr Turner. I thank the hon. Member for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford) for introducing the debate so ably, and I agree with much of what he said. He presented a number of questions to the Minister on the operation of alcohol duty, but one question that was perhaps missing was around the health impacts of having the wrong level of alcohol duty in the UK. I will touch on that in my speech. In my life, English wine has moved from being a feature of jokes on sitcoms to a premium product—sometimes in terms of price, but more importantly in terms of its quality. I am pleased to see that Scotland’s wine industry is also growing. In 2025, so far five new vineyards have registered with Food Standards Scotland. I hope that this industry will continue to flourish and grow.”

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38. “The hon. Member is talking passionately and making many points that I agree with, but which constituents would he tell that they will not get that rise in the minimum wage? Will he tell his constituents that he opposes their getting that rise?”

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39. “I thank the Secretary of State for her statement and for bringing it to us so promptly. I use LNER every week to come to this place; I always knew that the staff were great, but I did not realise that they were heroes. The response we saw from both the staff and the public on the train really was the best of Britain, but the response on social media was absolutely shameful, if I am honest—it shames us as a country. LNER connects Edinburgh South West to destinations north and south, and I am sure my residents will be really pleased to hear that we are looking at facial recognition on the transport network. That is incredibly important, but I will talk about knife crime more generally. In June, the Government gave a commitment to look at the manufacture and sale of round-tip knives and hopefully mandating them.”

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40. “One of the great things about Edinburgh South West is that it has a flourishing renewables sector, which I think is reaching critical mass. A few weeks ago, I attended a fantastic roundtable that demonstrated the industry’s desire to work with the UK Government to make their industrial strategy a complete success. Will the Secretary of State commit to meeting organisations in Edinburgh South West to discuss how we can ensure that our industrial strategy brings as many jobs as possible to Scotland’s capital?”

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41. “I thank the Minister for his statement—it is good to have somebody at the Dispatch Box who both understands and cares about this issue. We have spent no shortage of time in this Chamber talking about the conflicts in the middle east and in Ukraine, but I think all of us are guilty of not talking enough about Sudan. The International Criminal Court is investigating some reports of atrocities in Sudan. Does the Minister feel that that investigation should extend to those who knowingly export weapons into the conflict?”

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42. “I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing his first Westminster Hall debate. I thought this was an issue of personal annoyance until I met Alan, an old colleague from Heriot-Watt University, who said he found it difficult to go out in the evening and was not looking forward to winter. He is a young man—even younger than me—so does my hon. Friend agree that we need more research to fully understand the negative impacts of these lights?”

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43. “That is an interesting point. If most drivers think there is an issue, that means their cars are probably part of the problem. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that they should look at their own vehicles first before they start criticising other drivers?”

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44. “I thank the Minister for his statement and his focus on maintaining the ceasefire. I stand in solidarity with the many ordinary Palestinians living under Hamas and with the families in Israel waiting for their loved ones to be returned, but I cannot conclude that what Netanyahu has done in the last 24 hours was proportionate in any way. I continue to hope and pray for peace. With peace will come the opportunity to rebuild Gaza, but I do not see how that can be done when Israel holds so many people without charge, particularly healthcare workers. My constituent Eman is really concerned about Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, who is being held. Does the Minister agree it is really important that people, particularly healthcare workers, should not be held without charge? Is he having negotiations with Israel on their release?”

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45. “I do. I thank my hon. Friend for giving way, and wish her husband well—I am sure that he is incredibly proud of her. In Scotland in 2024, only 212 thrombectomies took place, which accounts for 2.2% of all eligible cases. Those are statistics that should shame us. If we compare it with Ireland, a comparably sized country, the number is five times higher. Does my hon. Friend agree that we can always do better?”

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46. “Perhaps the hon. Gentleman can clarify what is happening here. Is the issue that the Government thought that China was a threat to national security but did not declare it, or that they declared it but China was not a threat? I am quite confused about the point he is making.”

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47. “I think the issue is that the Government in 2023 were not clear on whether or not China was a threat. Did they clearly make the statement that it was a threat, or was China a threat but the Government failed to make that statement?”

    House of Commons28 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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48. “I thank the gallant Minister for giving way. On the point about the complex benefits ecosystem, I have fantastic charities in my constituency called Sight Scotland and Sight Scotland Veterans, which do an excellent job supporting veterans as they apply for welfare. Will the Minister join me in congratulating charities across the country that work every single day to support our veterans?”

    House of Commons28 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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49. “To quote her directly, and I warn Members that this is a bit graphic, “it was a shock to the system, her body was sore, her breasts were leaking, she was still bleeding”. She had to do work in that condition. She highlights that alongside the physical and logistical difficulties, she felt stigmatised by medical staff and other parents who judged her for leaving her child to return to work so early, without understanding that her financial situation forced her to do so. I spoke to Blanche at the weekend. She does plan to have another child—she is a fantastic mum, and I am sure that we all wish her well—but she hopes that by then, Minister, things will have changed. I know that we cannot do this overnight, but I hope that the Minister can signal the start of a transition.”

    House of Commons27 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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50. “I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Burton and Uttoxeter (Jacob Collier) for introducing this debate. Being a parent is the hardest job in the world, and I believe that the state has a duty to make it easier. With just 90 seconds, I want to focus on just one case study. Blanche is a fantastic mum who lives in Edinburgh South West. She is self-employed, and she found herself in an even more precarious position when she had a child. As she works for herself, she was entitled to only a statutory allowance: a flat £187 per week with no six-week cushion, unlike the statutory maternity pay situation. As a result, she had to work right up until the morning she went into labour at 41 weeks, and she returned to work almost instantly after using up her “keeping in touch” days.”

    House of Commons27 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗

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