MPs set the rules on maternity and paternity leave - but when an MP has a baby there’s no system for any leave at all. This is ridiculous - because while a constituency needs to be represented at all times, a mother also needs some time to focus on her new baby. There are now 208 women in parliament – that’s more than ever and it’s an important aspect of making our democracy more representative. And it’s a fact of life that many of them are having babies: 17 were born to women MPs since 2010.
So what happens at the moment? An MP having a baby will ask the party whips to arrange a “pair” so she can be away from Westminster. They’ll allow her to miss a vote and at the same time a Conservative MP will not vote. But that means she has to ask for a favour from the whips and she’s in their debt when they allow her to be off. Her vote is not recorded so it looks as though she hasn’t bothered to turn up or doesn't care about what’s being voted on. When Manchester MP Lucy Powell was paired in the weeks after her baby was born the Sun reported her failure to vote denouncing her as “the laziest MP in Westminster”. Lucy is one of our most hyper-active MPs and there’s nothing lazy about any mother looking after a new baby.
As an MP, you need to be “on call” for your constituency 24/7. You never know when there’ll be an emergency. I had to rush to a burning tower block in 2009 and broke my holiday to come back when there were riots in Peckham 2011. Situations which suddenly require you to be around for happen more often than you think. But when you are in labour you cannot be on duty. And when you have a new baby you shouldn’t have to be on duty. But if you’re not, constituents will feel that there’s no-one they can ask for help. Each time after I had my three babies, constituents would say to me ‘we didn’t want to bother you so soon after your baby was born’. They shouldn’t have been in the position of feeling like they were without help because their MP had just had a baby. But with no leave and no cover, as an MP with a new baby I felt like a bad MP and a bad mother.
There’s no leave for men MPs either. In the past many would not leave the commons at all but just hear from their family that they’d become a father. James Frith the new MP for Bury had to leave his newborn son when he was only hours old to vote on the EU bill last month. Most fathers want some time with their new baby and what example is Parliament setting to fathers in the country if MPs themselves are absent in those crucial first weeks?
So I’m proposing a new system of baby leave and cover for women and men MPs - for six months you could ask a fellow MP to act as your “proxy” to cast your vote and you would also be able to nominate someone to cover for you in your constituency while you were off. That way you would get the time you need, the constituency would have the representation it is entitled to and you wouldn’t have to ask for favours from the whips. There’s a lot of support for both men and women MPs from all parties so I’m optimistic it will happen. And hopefully MPs who are new parents in the future will not feel wracked with guilt like I was.
Find out more in this article in the Times (£).