Clause 3 - Additional paternity leave: adoption
Work and Families Bill
11:45 am
Kitty Ussher (Burnley, Labour)
It is an honour to move my first amendment under your chairmanship, Mr. Bayley.
This is a probing amendment to elicit a little more elucidation from my hon. Friends on the Front Bench as to their intention when laying down regulations determining the precise nature of mainly fathers’ ability to take paternity rights.
In the pre-Budget report a year ago, the Chancellor said that the Government would allow mothers to transfer part of their leave to fathers. That was all that was said at that point. The impression was given that it would be quite a flexible arrangement so that at any point in the maternity leave if both parents wanted it the leave could be transferred to the father, who could take over the responsibility for the young child. Since then the Government have consulted on their proposal. Although no decision has yet been made and I understand that none will be made during the passage of the Bill, some remarks have been made that suggest that Ministers are moving towards a situation where they would prefer the woman to take the first six months and the man to take any entitlement that remains, up to an additional six months.
My amendment would return us to the spirit of the original announcement so that it would be entirely flexible. If a woman wished to return to work before six months, the father would take up the leave if he wanted to at that point. This is important because otherwise, if both parents wished to swap over, it would be denied to them. That could be a problem where the woman wanted to go back to work because it was important to her identity and happiness or where it was financially sensible for her to do so. Although the majority of cases may not be like this, as was emphasised in our earlier debate, she may earn more and it may be in the financial interests of the family, and therefore the child, for her to return earlier if she wants to. The mother may be in such a position in her organisation—perhaps a small business or even a large corporation—that she wants to return early for fear of what might happen to that organisation if she does not continue to be at the helm.
I must declare a small interest here, as a female Member of Parliament with a small child. I wished to return to work and my constituents wished me to do so, but under the current legislation my husband had to resign his job in order to take over the care of our child. If we do not accept the spirit of this amendment in regulations, we shall be in an anomalous situation where parents would have to introduce an alternative form of child care for the period from three to six months, which would seem unnecessarily disruptive if a father wished to take over. Alternatively, the Government would make it more likely that a small business with a mother at the helm would fail, which is not what we are attempting to do. The mother would be forced to remain at home until her husband was able to take over.
I understand that there has been considerable consultation on this. I should like to give my response on what I think some of the issues are. Obviously, Department of Health guidelines and World Health Organisation guidelines state that women should be encouraged to breastfeed for the first six months. However, it is not law that they should do so. If that is what we intend, we should legislate for it. The Department of Health makes all sorts of other recommendations about eating five portions of fruit and veg each day, not smoking, not drinking too much and so on. Ultimately it is a matter of choice. It is also technically possible to return to work and breastfeed through expressing milk. It is tedious, but it is possible. Indeed, in other parts of the statute book we make it easier for mothers to do that through the legal requirement on employers to provide places where they can express milk and so on.
I understand that businesses may find it complex to have to keep track of what the mother is doing when a father asks to exercise his paternal rights. However, that would also be the case if they decided to do it at month 7 or month 8, which is what the Government seem to be suggesting at the moment. I do not see how it is more complex to do it at month 4 than at month 7. A large number of the consultees did not favour it. However, some did. Those who did represent an enormous interest group—fathers, through Fathers Direct. My question to my hon. Friends is whether the responses to the consultation are representative of the type of people who need the spirit of the amendment to be reflected in regulations. I never thought that I would say this, but I have tabled the amendment because I believe that the provision discriminates against men, and I am all in favour of equality.