Westminster Hall

Monday 13th April 2026 Westminster Hall

Monday 13 April 2026

[David Mundell in the Chair]

Statutory Menstrual Leave

Monday 13th April 2026 Westminster Hall

16:30

[Paul Davies (Colne Valley) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 732342 relating to statutory menstrual leave.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. Please let me thank Michelle, who is sitting in the Public Gallery with her daughter, for creating the petition that has brought us to the debate today. I am honoured to be leading on this issue. Some may ask why a man is leading a debate on women’s health. They may think that endometriosis and adenomyosis are somewhat awkward to speak about in public and that such women’s issues should be reserved for conversations behind closed doors, out of earshot of embarrassed male peers, but that is exactly why we are here today—because women’s health is not just a women’s issue. It is a workplace issue, an economic issue and, importantly, an equality issue.

Endometriosis and adenomyosis are conditions that cause chronic pain as a result of the excess growth of tissue similar to the lining of the womb in areas outside the womb. That results in a range of symptoms, from inflammation to severe pain, fatigue and in some cases infertility. These can be cyclical conditions, with some women feeling disabled for one week a month. Conversely, others experience such pain almost constantly. In the UK, 1.5 million women suffer from endometriosis, and 40% of them suffer additionally with adenomyosis. Both conditions have significant impacts on educational engagement and workplace participation, productivity and progression. Combined, they cost the UK economy more than £8 billion a year. That includes health costs and, of course, loss of work.

However, it is crucial to understand that the loss of time in the workplace has not just economic ramifications. Not being able to go to work can impact one’s self-esteem and individual identity. Twenty-three per cent of women have taken time off work because of period health issues, and one in six with endometriosis leaves the workplace entirely, because of their condition. Even following surgery, many women feel pressured to return to work before they have fully recovered. Despite all the impacts, only one in 10 women believes that her employer provides support for menstruation and menstrual health.

Even receiving a diagnosis of endometriosis in the first place is frustratingly difficult, with the average waiting time being nine years and four months. In half of cases, patients report their symptoms to the GP 10 times or more, and 52% of patients end up visiting A&E at least once.

My first awareness of endometriosis was through my wife, Leah, who lived with the condition from the age of 12 to her 30s. For Leah, obtaining a diagnosis was a long, exhausting and frustrating process. She was told numerous times to simply get on with it or to go and take a paracetamol. Like so many others, she found that her pain and struggle were constantly and continuously dismissed as heavy periods. But endometriosis meant that, as a young adult, Leah had to miss out on school. She lived 12 miles away and could not get home in time if she was having a heavy episode. For fear of embarrassment, she simply chose not to go to school, heavily impacting her education at the time.

Throughout her teens, later in her 20s and even after having two children, Leah suffered the debilitating impact of endometriosis. She would often be close to fainting with the pain, but suffered in silence. Eventually we found a GP who was prepared to do something about it, and Leah was referred to a specialist. Following several procedures, her issues with endometriosis subsided. However, that is not to say that it was straightforward: unfortunately, following a partial hysterectomy, Leah suffered a significant haemorrhage at home, and it was only due to emergency surgery at our local hospital that she survived. Even after diagnosis, there are risks with treatment. Endometriosis has to be recognised as a significant and complex condition. My wife was failed by a system that lacked, and still lacks, a full understanding of the symptoms of endometriosis, and by a culture that overlooks how menstrual health can dominate and affect daily life.

The Department for Work and Pensions “Keep Britain Working” initiative has been crucial in recognising the impact of health on people’s working lives. However, as many colleagues will agree, we have so much more to do. We must include menstrual health, including endometriosis and adenomyosis, in both existing and future agendas, reaffirming the importance of women’s health in the workplace. To do so, we must challenge the related stigma and reflect on policy.

To challenge the stigma, we must strive to understand that endometriosis and adenomyosis are systemic, chronic health conditions that can derail somebody’s life. The lack of awareness of that fact, combined with a taboo surrounding menstrual health, accentuates the suffering of patients, making them feel as though they have nowhere to turn and no shoulder to lean on. With other conditions that affect a similar number of women, such as type 2 diabetes, no such taboo or silence exists. There is a positive acceptance and understanding of the difficulties faced by those with type 2 diabetes—and rightly so. We must replicate that acceptance and understanding in our attitude towards menstrual health.

Following conversations with Endometriosis UK, I support the expansion of the endometriosis-friendly employer scheme and the national workplace endometriosis and adenomyosis pledge, which allow businesses to commit to employer action plans that promote open dialogue, training and understanding of these health issues. Incorporating seemingly little things—such as toilet access, break rotations or even the size ranges of uniforms —into a national framework of practical workplace adjustments can greatly improve the workplace experience of menstrual health, including endometriosis and adenomyosis. As Dr Jasmine Hearn and her colleagues at Manchester Metropolitan University highlight, improving awareness and tackling stigma in this way are key to ensuring justice for women with menstrual health concerns. However, as stated earlier, only one in 10 women believe that their organisation provides support for menstruation and menstrual health conditions. We must increase that number dramatically, and the promotion of the endometriosis-friendly employer scheme is a powerful means to do so.

However, a change in culture alone is not enough; weusb need concrete policy to ensure that workplace accommodation is legally binding. This is where statutory menstrual leave could play a vital role. The Employment Rights Act 2025 ensures that large employers must publish gender equality action plans—a great step in the right direction—but it stops short of directly mentioning reproductive or menstrual health. The Act has made significant progress in supporting menopausal health in the workplace, but we must now expand this to menstrual health more broadly, including endometriosis and adenomyosis. An option would be to give those diagnosed a legal entitlement like that in Portugal, where up to three days of leave per month is permitted. Here, a diagnosis would allow women the flexibility and legal right to have time off work when they are suffering most.

It is important, however, to recognise that endometriosis, adenomyosis and menstrual healthcare are vastly nuanced. A single catch-all policy to address the workplace experience could risk overlooking such complexity with menstrual and reproductive health. We must also recognise that getting a diagnosis in the first place is still a major issue with endometriosis and adenomyosis. Again, the average diagnosis takes nine years and four months, meaning that only 15% of those with endometriosis symptoms have the formal diagnosis that would allow them access to such statutory menstrual leave.

For statutory menstrual leave to work as the petition intends, we must match it with significant improvements in early intervention, diagnosis and GP training on symptoms. This debate marks an opportunity to help ensure that the impact of these conditions on women’s health is no longer ignored. There is an argument for statutory menstrual leave, and for it to sit alongside wider measures that foster awareness and an understanding mindset. We must also challenge the stigma around women’s health by breaking taboos and championing justice for those who, all too often, suffer in silence.

Michelle told me that the petition is not about her; it is about her daughter and all those who will have to battle endometriosis and adenomyosis in the future. By challenging the stigma and reflecting on policy, we can champion the employment rights of those with menstrual and reproductive health complications today and in the future, effecting transformative changes to many people’s lives. I thank everybody for attending this debate, and I look forward to hearing Members’ views.

16:42

[Kirsteen Sullivan (Bathgate and Linlithgow) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Mundell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Paul Davies) for speaking with such compassion and insight, and for sharing Leah’s journey—one I am afraid many will recognise. I am chair of the all-party parliamentary group on endometriosis, which is launching an inquiry into endometriosis in the workplace on 21 April, and I invite colleagues from across the House to attend the event that will be held. We want to hear directly from women and employers about their experiences, including what is or is not working, and about what has to change if we are to better support women to remain in the workplace.

As we have heard, Endometriosis UK operates an endo-friendly employer scheme with certification. Last November, my office signed up to that scheme, which offers guidance and support to run an endo-friendly workplace. I also wrote to my local councils and chamber of commerce to invite them to do the same. I ask all Members to consider signing up and leading by example in their own communities.

Too many women have had their pain dismissed as normal, struggled silently at work or had their careers derailed because a workplace simply was not designed with their health in mind. As a result, one in six women with endometriosis has ended up leaving the workplace—an entirely unacceptable and largely avoidable situation.

It was being elected to this place that made me persist in seeking support for my symptoms, which limited my ability to fully participate in my responsibilities as a parliamentarian—the fatigue and the menstrual flooding, and the constant worrying and planning about what I was wearing and where I would be at any given time. As it turned out, I have adenomyosis, which was discovered only at the ripe old age of 49, as I come to the end of my reproductive life. So I understand the stress, pain and worry that affect millions of women in this country today.

Menstrual leave has gathered support at just the right time, as many of the provisions of the Employment Rights Act 2025 have just come into force. We recognise that the workplace needs to change and that women should not be disadvantaged due to health conditions. The women’s health strategy refresh in England and phase 2 of the Scottish women’s health plan present opportunities to correct the trend that has led to endometriosis and menstrual health being under-researched, undertreated and under-recognised, and diagnosis wait times increasing to a decade or more for some women. I would be grateful if the Minister could assure us that endometriosis waiting times will be the utmost priority in the women’s health strategy refresh.

Although endometriosis affects around one in 10 women, it does not affect everyone in the same way. Some need intermittent time off during flare-ups; others, especially when properly supported, can work consistently, but need flexibility, reasonable adjustments and job security if their symptoms worsen. Prior to this debate, I looked into other countries that have menstrual leave. What that means in practice varies considerably. Vietnam offers a half-hour paid break every day during menstruation; Spain gives up to five days of paid leave for severe menstrual pain, subject to a doctor’s approval; and Portugal allows workers suffering severe and disabling menstrual pain to take up to three consecutive days of paid leave, dependent on the employee providing a medical note confirming incapacitating pain due to endometriosis or adenomyosis.

Legislation that provides for menstrual health is not necessarily a silver bullet, particularly when it relies upon a diagnosis. That would be the opposite of progress. Women with endometriosis do not need a one-size-fits-all policy; they need flexibility, fairness and protection. Too many workplaces automatically trigger action once someone hits an arbitrary number of absences, which is deeply discriminatory. Absence management systems need to change to recognise the chronic and episodic nature of conditions such as endometriosis and adenomyosis, and the accompanying mental physical fatigue from living with persistent pain.

Critically, employees need endometriosis to be treated for what it is: a long-term, whole-body health condition, not a series of isolated sick days. Menstrual leave can be an essential part of the support package, but building stronger rights to flexible work, reasonable adjustments and protection from workplace penalisation is central to any solution. To improve outcomes for women with endometriosis, we need answers that recognise the reality of the condition and help women to stay in work, progress in work and be treated with dignity at work.

16:48

[Michelle Welsh (Sherwood Forest) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I am pleased to take part in this debate and to stand with the 149 women in Sherwood Forest and the 109,000 people in total who signed this petition.

Painful periods are often dismissed as something that women should simply put up with—an inconvenience that is not that bad and happens only once a month—but for thousands of women across the UK, that could not be further from the truth. Every day, women live with chronic pain and exhaustion caused by conditions such as endometriosis. While the petition focuses on endometriosis and adenomyosis, it is important that we also include other, often overlooked conditions that cause severe menstrual symptoms, such as polycystic ovary syndrome. Around one in eight women in the UK have PCOS, and one in 10 have endometriosis. Some, like me, live with both.

Introducing menstrual leave in the UK would be life-changing for so many women. It would allow them to prioritise their health without fear of losing income or facing repercussions at work. Just as importantly, it would send a clear message to employers that women’s health must be taken seriously.

The reality is that women are still not equal in the workplace. They are expected to work through intense pain and fatigue, and remain just as productive, regardless of how unwell they are. Many women worry about the consequences of taking too much sick leave, including lost pay and being penalised or viewed negatively at work. By enshrining menstrual leave in law, we can ensure that employers are unable to penalise women for managing long-term health conditions. It would also create an opportunity to improve awareness and understanding of the real impact that conditions like endometriosis and PCOS have on people’s lives. While symptoms vary, and some women may experience few or none, others suffer severe, debilitating pain that affects their ability to work, study and live their daily lives. For example, PCOS can involve fatigue, pain, irregular cycles and significant mental health impacts, affecting the ability to work.

That was the reality for me: passing out at sixth-form college in the toilets on a regular basis, experiencing extreme pain to the point where I could not even stand up, suffering migraines, sickness and vomiting, and doing my GCSEs when I could barely see out of my eyes. PCOS and similar conditions are chronic and multi-system, meaning that they do not affect just one part of the body or happen for a short period; they are lifelong conditions that require ongoing management and support, yet they are rarely recognised in workplace support frameworks.

I am pleased that the Government have introduced the menopause action plan. I ask the Minister to go further and introduce a menstruation action plan so that workplaces can start to reflect better the lives of women and the range of conditions they face, and ensure an understanding of the effect of the pain and suffering. Portugal and Spain already have such policies; the UK should too.

Another crucial part of this debate is diagnosis. Menstrual leave alone will not fully support women if it can take years for them to receive an accurate diagnosis. I had to wait over 18 years for my diagnosis, all while trying to manage the symptoms by myself. GPs told me to take paracetamol and put a hot water bottle on my stomach, when I could not even stand up. A diagnosis cannot solve everything, but it unlocks access to the right treatments, and gives women the evidence they need to request reasonable adjustments in the workplace. It gives women an opportunity to do what is right for themselves. Until women’s pain is taken seriously—medically and professionally —true equality at work will remain out of reach for so many.

16:52

[Emily Darlington (Milton Keynes Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I declare an interest: I have adenomyosis. It took more than 30 years for it to be diagnosed. The average diagnosis time is nine years and four months. For ethnically diverse communities, it is over 11 years.

My story is not unusual. From the age of 14, I repeatedly went to the GP saying, “This isn’t normal.” That is like the 47% of sufferers who visited their GP more than 10 times before a diagnosis, while 70% visited more than five times. We all know what they were told: “You’re making a fuss about nothing”, “It’s normal”, and as we just heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood Forest (Michelle Welsh), “All you need is a hot water bottle and some painkillers.”

Like so many other young women—80% of them—I was put on the contraceptive pill before any further investigation, and well before I was sexually active. This continued for many years. I once convinced a doctor that the pain was so bad that I should have some kind of exploratory surgery, so they did exploratory surgery looking for endometriosis. They did not look for adenomyosis. After that, I really was told that I was making it up, because they could not find anything.

When I gave birth to my first child, I was in labour for 30 hours. A midwife at the other end of the phone kept saying to my husband, “If she’s able to nap, she’s clearly not having contractions.” I could nap during contractions because I had spent more than 30 years having to sleep with adenomyosis. I learned to have a very high pain tolerance. That baby was delivered in A&E because we got to the hospital so late. Even after being able to describe the pain of my periods being worse than the pain of contractions, not least because they were continuous and did not go away and come back like contractions, I was told that I was exaggerating and that it could not possibly be that bad. They told me that there was nothing they could do other than keep me on the contraceptive pill, which seemed to do nothing.

It was not until I got to the other end with my reproductive health, when I had to go for several scans for menopause ahead of getting treatment for perimenopause, that the scanner said to me, “Oh, you have adenomyosis. That must be really painful,” as an offhand comment. I was bowled over. I said, “What is that? I’ve never even heard of it.” I had heard of endometriosis, but I had no idea what adenomyosis was. She said, “Oh, it’s similar, but it’s growing in your muscle lining.” I could not believe it; I was shocked that from the beginning to the end of my reproductive years—all those years of pain—I never once got a proper diagnosis.

How did that impact my working career? I used to wish my period would start on a weekend, so that I would not have to miss work—I can see some nodding heads. I used to organise my work tasks around my expected period: I would do all the work that took concentration on days I knew would be good days, so that on the bad days I did not have to be productive. I missed about a day of work a month, which used to terrify me at the beginning of my career. I did not feel that I could talk to my bosses about it—I did not have the words to do so—and I had doubts from those doctors telling me that it was not as bad as I thought.

I also want to share April’s story. She is only 24 and she has been going through this for the past 10 years. Her periods were so painful that she vomited. It is like that for many of us: doctors would say, “Take a paracetamol,” and I would say, “That’s great, but I can’t keep it down. I will literally vomit it back up.” April had a Mirena intrauterine device fitted for her symptoms, but she wanted to get it removed. I was shocked by this story: she was told that the strings of her IUD had been cut too short to remove without surgery. When April asked why that was the case she was told:

“We cut the strings short for our younger patients, because we don’t want their boyfriends to find sex with them uncomfortable.”

April had to undergo surgery under general anaesthesia to remove her IUD. She says that, at every stage,

“A decision about my own body—my contraception, my ability to access the removal of my IUD—was shaped around the comfort of a hypothetical male partner.”

She was single at the time.

That is what we are all put through. At no point were any of us told that painful periods are not normal—I am not talking about discomfort; I am talking about pain—even though we know that to be the case. Each and every one of us should know that from the start. This relates to the fact that women’s health information is being shadow-banned online. Over the past year, 95% of women’s health educators were targeted for shadow-banning. That means that people who are trying to get this kind of health information out there are having their posts either blocked or downgraded because of their content. I do not mean to be rude, but that does not seem to happen to posts about erectile dysfunction.

Educators are told by big tech that it has been quietly restricting or hiding women’s health content that contains educational terms like “periods”, “menopause”, “vagina” and “endometriosis” under the guise of safety or because those terms are too sexualised. How are we supposed to create an environment in which not only we as women but our bosses, colleagues and partners, who might be male, all understand that painful periods are not normal, and that the pain is real?

We are seeing improvements in these areas, and I know that we are all looking forward to the women’s health strategy, which many of us have had long conversations about with the Ministers involved. We hope that it will bring about further real progress, but right now, I have a 15-year-old daughter who has all the same symptoms that I had, with all the same pain. I have told her all my tricks, including the use of irritable bowel syndrome medication to reduce some of the cramping—if people in the Public Gallery do not know about that one, it works really well—but our GP says that she is too young to start having such discussions. She is doing her mock GCSE exams this week. I wish her the best of luck, because she has studied really hard, but she is terrified that she will get her period this week and it will mess up those mock GCSEs.

I have given just a few examples; I know that women in the Public Gallery could give many more. We hear the same story over and over, and it all stems from this fallacy that periods are meant to be painful. Painful periods are not normal and we need to repeat that to every woman we know, including every female team member we know and every GP or consultant we know, to make real change happen.

17:01

[Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)]

You will not be surprised to hear me say, Mr Mundell, that it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Paul Davies) for the way in which he introduced this debate, and other hon. Members for the excellent speeches that followed.

I recently met a constituent who lives in Chesser and has adenomyosis. During our meeting, she told me about the debilitating impact of the condition on her personal life and her work life, and it was a real insight for me. On some days, her pain is so severe that she struggles to walk or move around her home, even to reach the toilet. She also reminded me just how common endometriosis and adenomyosis are: given that around 10% of menstruators suffer from one of the two conditions, there could be thousands of people in Edinburgh South West who currently suffer from the regular and excruciating pain that they cause.

Although my constituent now has an employer who understands and accommodates her health needs and allows her to work from home or take leave for her condition, that has not always been the case. She recounted the degrading experience of having to explain her health issues in detail to a former employer, just for taking time off. Despite that, she was still given a written warning. It is such inconsistency among employers that motivated her to sign the petition and to meet me to ask, very politely, that I attend this debate on her behalf.

As we have already heard, up to one in six women with endometriosis have to leave the workplace due to their condition. For some women, that will be because they really cannot work due to the pain they suffer. Sadly, for other women, who can work and want to work, it may come down to a lack of accommodating workplaces. We have to be honest about that situation and say that it is discrimination.

I recognise the Government’s position that the provisions of the Equality Act 2010 should ensure the flexibility that is required for women affected by these conditions to take leave or for adjustments to be made for them. However, laws are only useful if they are respected and enforced. None the less, I hope that the reforms introduced in the Employment Rights Act 2025, including statutory sick pay, will ensure that further accommodations can be made.

I hope that the Minister will give some guarantee today that the Government will look at menstrual leave schemes abroad to inform the evidence-based best practice that we need in the UK. I also hope that the Government will do what they can to support businesses or organisations that decide to introduce such practice in the interim, simply because it is the right thing to do. I must be honest and say that I had not heard of the endometriosis-friendly employer scheme before, so it would also be interesting to hear what the Government are doing to support that scheme.

The data from the schemes implemented abroad show that they are unlikely to be abused. Although the petition we are discussing today relates to the scheme in Portugal, the introduction of a similar menstrual leave policy in Spain has not led to an avalanche of sick days being taken as a result. Although I know there have been some concerns about how easy it is to access that scheme, the Spanish allowance has been used just 1,550 times. It will hardly have a significant impact on the Spanish economy, but it will be a huge benefit to the women who are able to access it.

Equally, such schemes can help employees avoid having repeatedly to justify in detail absences that they require. With the Portuguese system of requiring only one initial confirmation of diagnosis, employees will likely be spared uncomfortable and degrading conversations with superiors and work colleagues about this medical condition.

I hope the Government will look to the positive impact of those schemes abroad and build up best practice for the UK. I want to make one last point: when I spoke about this debate on my Facebook page, many women who responded said that they were keener for GPs to be better informed about the condition, and for diagnosis to happen much quicker. I could not believe it took just over nine months for a diagnosis to take place—

[Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Clapham and Brixton Hill) (Lab)]

Nine years.

[Dr Arthur]

Nine years—apologies. It took just over nine years for a diagnosis to take place, given the pain we have heard about. We have heard in this debate about the real human impact that delay causes. That must be impacting our economy too, so I hope the Government will commit to studying the effect of these conditions on the economy, and perhaps that will justify action in this domain.

17:06

[Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Clapham and Brixton Hill) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Paul Davies) for his opening remarks, and for his compassion and solidarity. He is absolutely right that every man should have a say in these issues and challenge them. As well as the fact that nearly half the global population will menstruate at some point in their lifetime, and on any given day 850 million people across the world are menstruating, we are all here because a woman somewhere had a menstrual cycle, so it is a concern for absolutely everybody.

For something so universal, menstruation remains shrouded in coded language, embarrassment and unnecessary shame. We call it “the time of month”, “the painters are in”, “my cousin has come to stay”—anything but what it actually is. We pass around tampons and pads as if they are some sort of contraband that no one should see. That evasion is not accidental: it is the product of centuries of conditioning that told women their bodies were problems to be managed in silence and shame.

Listening to my fellow hon. Friends speaking about their own experience, all I keep thinking is that, if young women had been flagged when they had painful periods, things would have been different for a lot of the conditions we are talking about, certainly in terms of the length of time to diagnosis. I am really pleased to contribute to this debate and support statutory menstrual leave, not as a radical policy but as a practical, compassionate and long-overdue step towards a fairer and healthier working society.

We already see where progress has been made and where things have been championed in this House. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Ms Oppong-Asare) on the ten-minute rule Bill she introduced recently and her consistent campaigning for improved endometriosis care. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bathgate and Linlithgow (Kirsteen Sullivan) on her work as the chair of the APPG on endometriosis. All that work matters and it is making a difference.

Scotland became the first country in the world to legislate for free menstrual products, and across the UK we rightly abolished VAT on sanitary products in 2021, finally ending the so-called tampon tax. Steps like those matter, but they are not the end of the journey—not by a long way. Here is the truth: we have made it cheaper to menstruate, but we have not made it safe to admit that someone is struggling because of it.

Menstrual stigma continues to socially condition people to conceal their pain, push through it and stay silent at work. The cost of that silence is not abstract; for those living with endometriosis, dysmenorrhoea, adenomyosis or premenstrual dysphoric disorder, that silence means working through debilitating pain or losing earnings when they cannot, and in some cases losing jobs altogether. Those are real conditions. They are painful and often severe, and they exist within a system where female reproductive health has been chronically under-researched, underfunded and far too often dismissed.

[Kirsteen Sullivan]

My hon. Friend is making a very powerful point. Does she agree that the impact on women’s mental health is rarely spoken about? Women feel ignored and dismissed, but they are living in constant pain and the anticipation of it, which just wears them down. The mental health point is rarely acknowledged but must be addressed.

[Bell Ribeiro-Addy]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I say that as someone who lives with endometriosis and constantly experiences that pain, thinking about what I can and cannot do, and what I will be able to manage this week or that week. I know what it is to sit in a meeting, stand through our many votes and carry on a role that demands my full presence when my body is screaming otherwise. I know from listening to other Members and so many different women speaking about it that I am far from alone.

It is not a competition of who receives more health funding, but we have to say that men have won consistently. When my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington) was speaking, I looked up some figures for the amount of investment into things such as Viagra. Everyone should look at them when they can; they are shocking in comparison with what is spent on certain things in men’s and women’s health. Let us be honest about what that under-investment has cost us: endometriosis alone affects around 1.5 million people in the UK, taking an average of nearly nine years to diagnose, as we have heard. That is not a gap in the system, but a failure of the system; it is a failure rooted in a long-standing tendency to deprioritise women’s pain.

Statutory menstrual leave would allow someone to take time off when they were genuinely unable to work due to menstruation, without fear of judgment, without risking their job security and without having to lie about why they are absent. Crucially, it would also begin to normalise the conversation and to challenge the stigma rather than reinforce it, because the answer to workplace discrimination is never to remain invisible.

As we have heard, menstrual leave policies already exist across the globe: in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China, Indonesia, Zambia, Mexico and, most recently, Portugal. They are not fringe experiments, but functioning workplace policies in countries with vastly different cultures and economies. The evidence that this is workable is already there. Here at home, our Employment Rights Act has introduced major reforms, including a day one right to sick pay. Menstrual leave would sit naturally alongside those changes if we were to implement it; it is consistent with the direction of travel and is the next logical step.

The policy also offers vital protection for those who are too often overlooked, including transgender men and non-binary and gender-diverse people who menstruate. For many, disclosure of menstrual status can expose them to discrimination or worse. A clear statutory framework would provide safety, privacy and the reassurance that their needs were seen and protected by law.

There are those who argue that menstrual leave would undermine women in the workplace, and that employers would discriminate against people who menstruate when hiring. I take that concern seriously, but that argument has been made against every single piece of workplace equality legislation in history: it was made against maternity leave, it was made against equal pay, and it was made against flexible working. In every case, the answer was not to abandon the protection, but to make the legal framework strong enough to prevent the discrimination. That is what we have to do here too.

The ultimate goal is job security, wellbeing and genuine equality. Menstrual leave alone will not get us all the way there, but it is a serious, evidence-backed and compassionate step in the right direction. I urge this House to take it.

17:13

[Mr Joshua Reynolds (Maidenhead) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I thank the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Paul Davies) for introducing the debate and I congratulate the lead petitioner on securing more than 109,000 signatures on their petition. That number should stick in all of our minds, because it sends a clear signal that this issue has been ignored for far too long and that the people affected by it are exhausted by the neglect they are feeling.

One of the women affected, a constituent of mine, wrote to me ahead of this debate. She talked about how endometriosis has shaped her life through pain, exhaustion and suffering for far too long. From a young age, she knew that her symptoms were not normal, enduring irregular cycles, severe clotting, chronic pain and debilitating symptoms that were too often dismissed or ignored. She was told that she may never have children, and although she was fortunate enough to have two, she told me that her condition worsened, bringing miscarriages, severe blood loss, iron deficiency, IBS and relentless pain.

My constituent said that, time and again, she would visit the GP, hospitals and specialists, and she was often told—as we have heard many times today—to simply manage the pain. Women with endometriosis are expected to suffer in silence, while their health, careers, families and quality of life deteriorate around them. She told me that she was not asking for miracles; she was asking to be heard, to be taken seriously and to receive the care that she deserves.

My constituent’s testimony is not exceptional; it is representative, and it is backed up with data. Last year, Endometriosis UK found that the average wait time for a diagnosis has now reached nine years and four months. That has gone up significantly in the last six years. During those nine years, the condition progresses, fertility is affected, and women are forced to manage debilitating pain in workplaces, education and at home. Shockingly, 83% of respondents to Endometriosis UK’s survey were told by a healthcare practitioner prior to their diagnosis that they were making a fuss. On top of that, women wait an average three and a half years after first noticing symptoms before seeking medical help at all, largely because severe period pain has been thoroughly normalised in our society. That women wait such a long time before they get their diagnosis is simply not acceptable. We also need to think about women from ethnically diverse communities, whose average time to diagnosis is even longer, at 11 years. The House should find that inequality unacceptable.

This is not just a health crisis. Endometriosis UK estimates that the economic loss to the UK from absenteeism due to severe period pain, heavy periods, endometriosis, fibroids and ovarian cysts is about £11 billion a year. The case for investment in women’s health and women’s support is not just moral; it is economic.

I wanted to touch on a point that Members have made multiple times about the arbitrary hit points for absence in absence management systems. When I was working in the private sector, we had a very similar system: if someone hit three absences within a defined period of time, they would go through an investigation and a disciplinary meeting—just like that. Although there may be mitigations for long-term conditions, the stress of the idea of going through an investigatory meeting because of their long-term condition adds to the cycle of women not wanting to go to their doctor or talk to professionals about what they are experiencing. They have been told for so long to just get on with it and manage the pain, and the absence management system in this sector does not help at all.

The Government’s response to the petition acknowledges the hardship that women are facing, but the action they talk about falls short. Ministers point to the Equality Act, reasonable adjustments and the Employment Rights Act, specifically on flexible working. I want to be clear that the Liberal Democrats support the right to day one flexible working, and we are glad to see these changes coming into force, we think, in April next year. Flexible working genuinely helps people to manage conditions such as endometriosis, and employers should be actively engaged in using it, but it relies on individual employers, and it cannot be a substitute for proper medical care or compensate for decades of misdiagnosis.

Before women can be properly supported in the workplace, they need to be diagnosed, and before they can be diagnosed, healthcare professionals need training. Time and resources need to go into being able to recognise and act on the symptoms. When over half of women with endometriosis are forced to attend A&E before receiving a diagnosis, we know that there is a failure in primary care, and that is adding to the pressure on our hospitals.

We need to invest in GPs and other healthcare professionals to ensure that anyone with long-term conditions such as endometriosis has access to named GPs who know their history and can provide continued support. We also need to make sure that people are actually able to receive a GP appointment and be seen when they need it; far too often, they are unable to do so.

I want the Government to commit to a new target to bring down substantially the average endometriosis diagnosis time, working towards the one year or less by 2030 target that Endometriosis UK is calling for. I also want them to put in place a proper awareness campaign and ensure that National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines are fully implemented across the primary care sector, with standardised referral pathways in place. The Government must also take seriously the role of mental health support, which, after years of pain and dismissal, many women will require. Such mental health support is currently severely lacking.

The petitioners and individuals who signed the petition —100,000 across the country and the many more they represent—are not asking for the impossible. They are asking to be heard, taken seriously and to receive the care that they need. I urge the Minister to match that urgency with her response today.

17:20

[Rebecca Paul (Reigate) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I thank everyone for their powerful and often personal contributions today. First, I want to recognise Michelle Dewar, the tenacious campaigner behind today’s petition for menstrual relief. She is a great champion for women suffering with endometriosis and adenomyosis, and I congratulate her on securing over 100,000 signatures—not an easy task, but it showcases the strength of feeling from many on this important topic.

Endometriosis is a condition where endometrial tissue, similar to the lining of the uterus, grows in other places such as the ovaries and fallopian tubes. One in 10 women of reproductive age suffer with it, making it the second most common gynaecological condition in the UK. Common symptoms include chronic pelvic pain and heavy menstrual bleeding, making normal activities difficult. It predominantly affects women during their reproductive years. Adenomyosis, an often overlooked condition, has similar symptoms, but is where the lining of the womb starts growing into the muscle in the wall of the womb. It is commonly diagnosed in women over the age of 30, but can also affect younger women, as we heard today. Similar to endometriosis, it affects one in 10 women, with nearly 70% of women waiting over five years to get a diagnosis.

Michelle’s own journey with endometriosis began 24 years ago, causing her to miss school every month from the age of 14. Shockingly, it was not until she was 23, nine years later, that she received a diagnosis. Unfortunately, as we have heard today, her story is far from uncommon, with many women not receiving a timely diagnosis. It takes on average eight years and 10 months from the first GP visit to get a diagnosis.

Women’s symptoms are often dismissed and normalised, leaving them to struggle on with their pain, without treatment, without understanding and without support. The lack of understanding and knowledge of what constitutes a normal period or menstrual cycle also delays women seeking help and can leave family and friends uncertain how to provide support. No woman or girl knows what a normal level of period pain is without input from others, and lack of awareness leads to her not being well equipped to advocate strongly for herself with medical practitioners. We also need to recognise that there is still embarrassment and stigma around talking about periods, which can add to the challenge of getting adequate medical care when something is not right.

Recognising the challenges women face in their engagement with the healthcare system, in 2022 the then Conservative Government published the women’s health strategy for England, a 10-year programme committed to improving women’s health. The strategy seeks to address disparities in women’s healthcare and the under-representation of women in medical research. One of the strategy’s eight priority areas is menstrual health and gynaecological conditions, including greater awareness, earlier diagnosis and better treatment of endometriosis and adenomyosis.

As we have heard many times today, all aspects of the lives of women struggling with those conditions and enduring awful pain every month are impacted. It affects their relationships, their overall wellbeing and also their careers, and such debilitating conditions impact on earnings in the long term. Office for National Statistics data published last year shows a drop in monthly earnings among women aged 25 to 54 diagnosed with endometriosis from one to five years after diagnosis, compared with the two-year period before being diagnosed with the condition. Average pay decreased each year post diagnosis, culminating in a £130 monthly reduction in the four to five years post-diagnosis period. Although it is likely that different factors contribute to this change, it is none the less worrying that there is such a statistically significant drop in earnings post diagnosis.

Prompt diagnosis of these conditions is vital and the roll-out of community diagnostic centres will help immensely. Many of my own constituents stand to benefit from the recently opened community diagnostic centre in the Belfry in Redhill, which will deliver much needed extra capacity to perform diagnostic scans. That is exactly the kind of practical measure that can help women to get answers more quickly when their symptoms and pain suggest that something is wrong.

When a woman is suffering symptoms that mean that she is unable to work, the current option available to her is to take sick leave. That option is available to any employee with any condition or illness that leaves them unable to work. It is a broad, non-discriminatory entitlement available across almost all conditions. From 6 April this year, following recent changes by this Labour Government, when a person is unable to work due to ill health, they are entitled to statutory sick pay from the first day of illness. It is also relevant to note that statutory sick pay is now available to all eligible employees, regardless of their earnings.

The current approach to statutory sick pay therefore allows any woman who requires two to three days off every month due to endometriosis or adenomyosis to take the time she needs with sick pay. For that reason, the introduction of a specific menstrual leave is unnecessary as statutory sick pay already delivers what is being asked for. Statutory sick pay is the better mechanism to use, because it does not discriminate or restrict provision to highly specific conditions. Lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease, and ulcerative colitis are just a few examples of conditions that are equally debilitating and involve regular flare-ups—so it is entirely right that they are covered too.

[Dr Arthur]

The hon. Lady has done a great job of outlining the changes to workers’ rights in terms of sick pay. Can she confirm that her party voted against those measures? She has explained the benefit to women with these conditions, but the hon, Lady’s party absolutely opposed those measures.

[Rebecca Paul]

That is absolutely right. I am explaining the current system and why we do not need an additional level of menstrual leave. What the hon Gentleman said is correct and yes, we opposed those changes.

The approach taken in Portugal has been mentioned a number of times during this debate and in the petition itself, so it is important that I address the situation. Portugal introduced a menstrual leave policy last year, which gives the right to up to three days of paid leave per month for women diagnosed with endometriosis or adenomyosis and who suffer from severe and disabling pain. However, it is important to note key differences between the Portuguese system and ours which explain the difference in approach.

First, in Portugal, the first three days of ordinary sickness absence are generally unpaid, with sickness benefit usually only starting from day four. As I have just explained, in the UK statutory sick pay now begins from the first day of illness. Portugal has created a diagnosis-specific exception within a less generous baseline sickness system. The implementation of the same policy in the UK would therefore not deliver the same kind of incremental benefit because our general sick pay framework already covers short absences from day one and does not require a sick note for only three days’ absence.

It is also important to note that the protected characteristic of “disability” under the Equality Act 2010 may cover some women suffering from severe endometriosis or adenomyosis, depending on the effect that the condition has on their day-to-day activities. Where that is the case, they are protected from discrimination and their employer may be required to make reasonable adjustments. Reasonable adjustments can include changes such as phased returns to work, part-time working or flexible hours to support women to continue working when they are able to despite their condition.

The Conservative position is that a specific menstrual leave is not required. We are comfortable that existing sick leave provisions and discrimination protections already adequately protect women suffering with these conditions and ensure that they can take the time off they require every month. However, that does not mean that we do not think action is needed. We urge the Government to do all that they can to raise awareness of how severe these conditions can be and ensure that the NHS provides early diagnosis and treatment. We need to end the situation where women spend years in agony with no answers and support, and where employers are ignorant of how debilitating these conditions can be.

17:29

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kate Dearden)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Paul Davies) for opening today’s debate and for bravely sharing his wife Leah’s experience of living with endometriosis. I also thank Michelle, who joins us in the Gallery, for creating the petition, sharing her story and experiences and bringing her daughter and so many other people here today to watch this debate. Finally, I thank my colleagues here who have reflected deeply on this matter, sharing their personal experiences and the experiences of their constituents and the many campaigners they have met across the country. The drive of all Members here today, and outside this Hall, makes it clear why the issue is so important for women and girls across the country and in our workplaces; clearly, we all know somebody impacted and living with various conditions that have led to a different experience at work. We want to see change and make sure that they can thrive in the workplace. That is why this debate is welcome and important.

I want to start by recognising the enormous, admirable strength of so many woman and girls living with endometriosis, adenomyosis and other menstrual conditions today, as well as the thousands of women who have come before us outside of this room. They have lived with the conditions for so long; they have not been diagnosed for many years, and it is harrowing to hear their reflections and stories from many colleagues today. I completely understand and share the determination to turn things around. I will touch on various actions that the Government have taken in the Department for Business and Trade—looking at specific workplace policies and our work with employers—and, of course, the strategic work that my colleagues in the Department for Health and Social Care are prioritising.

Recently, with the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, I was honoured to meet with Endometriosis UK to hear the lived experiences of women and their campaigns, including with Jasmina, the director of “Dear Doctor”. For those who have not watched it, it is an incredibly powerful film that describes living with the conditions and having to navigate working through the debilitating, but invisible, pain. It was incredibly moving to watch, and I thank them for it and for their time.

Of course, the conditions did not begin this year or this century. We are listening and taking action so that we can support women and girls across the country who live with those conditions. As Members, our constituents and the petition signatories know, they can be debilitating for patients. We have heard today about the pain, fatigue and psychological impacts, which are real, significant, and often have far-reaching consequences for women’s welfare and ability to fully participate in the workplace and education. It is unacceptable that health-related issues are the leading cause of women being excluded in the workplace. Over the past six years, the number of women who are economically inactive due to long-term sickness has risen by 425,000, reaching 1.48 million—close to a record high.

It is right that the Government are taking action on this issue from all sides, with our landmark Employment Rights Act making statutory sick pay more accessible and introducing equality action plans; access to work reforms in the Department for Work and Pensions through the “Keep Britain Working” programme; and our record investment in our NHS, which has seen gynaecology waiting lists fall by almost 20,000 and made transformative endometriosis medication available.

I will turn to the points that colleagues have made in this debate, and I thank them for raising them. We remain fully committed to learning from others and continue to look carefully at international best practice, which lots of colleagues have touched on today. That includes Portugal’s approach and other international examples that offer valuable insights into how to best support employees experiencing difficulties with menstrual health conditions.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bathgate and Linlithgow (Kirsteen Sullivan) for mentioning the endometriosis-friendly employer scheme. We expect employers to treat staff fairly and accommodate reasonable requests for employees suffering from menstrual health conditions. Many employers, as has been mentioned, choose to provide that voluntary support to staff, and the Government continue to encourage best practice. I thank colleagues for raising the scheme with me; two Departments—the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Department for Transport—have already signed up, and I will take this away for the Department for Business and Trade to consider. I thank colleagues for raising that scheme.

Turning to statutory sick pay, one of the key issues raised in the debate is ensuring that women and girls experiencing debilitating symptoms from menstrual conditions are supported and not financially punished for a condition beyond their control. Our Government’s landmark Employment Rights Act delivers that, extending statutory sick pay to employees on day one—their first day of sickness—regardless of how much they earn. No more waiting a few days and no more not being entitled to statutory sick pay if they earn a certain amount.

While it is regretful that the Opposition voted against the Employment Rights Act at every stage in Parliament, I think the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Reigate (Rebecca Paul), welcomed our statutory sick pay introductions this month. Those will change the lives of so many people across this country—as she and colleagues in this Chamber have pointed out—because they mean that, for the first time, those with fluctuating conditions such as endometriosis and adenomyosis are eligible for statutory sick pay from the first day that their sickness prevents them from working. Before the 2025 Act, they were excluded from statutory sick pay unless absence lasted for four days. That was a draconian system that harmed the least well off, ignored the lived experience of thousands of women, and desperately needed reform. It is absolutely right that we have dragged that system into the 21st century.

The Act also ensured that the UK leads the way in supporting employees to work flexibly. Flexible and hybrid working arrangements are vital in ensuring that employees who require reasonable adjustments, such as those with health conditions, are supported at work and are able to contribute to our workforce. That is particularly valuable for those with fluctuating or unpredictable conditions, including endometriosis and other menstrual health conditions, making it easier to manage symptoms and attend medical appointments, and reducing sickness absences.

The Act improves employees’ ability to work flexibly by requiring employers to accept flexible working requests, provided they are reasonable. Where they cannot accept those requests, employers will be required to discuss the challenges in accommodating them with employees and to consider alternative options, and, if they cannot agree an arrangement, to explain their reasoning. A public consultation on these reforms is currently under way until 30 April, and I encourage members of the public and advocacy organisations to please make submissions and ensure that their views are taken into account.

Alongside the right to request flexible working, protections continue to be available under the Equality Act, where symptoms have a substantial and long-term adverse effect on day-to-day activities. Conditions such as endometriosis, adenomyosis and premenstrual disorders can meet the definition of disability under the Equality Act. Employers absolutely have a duty to make reasonable adjustments, such as flexible hours, modified duties, part-time arrangements or phased returns. Those reasonable adjustments are well established, enforceable and designed to prevent discrimination and disadvantage.

[Kirsteen Sullivan]

Menstrual health conditions, including endometriosis, result in an estimated cost of £11 billion a year to the UK economy. Does my hon. Friend agree that having more supportive workplaces—workplaces without stigma, where there is an understanding of the chronic nature of some of those conditions—will have a positive effect not only for the women living with those conditions but overall, for our economy?

[Kate Dearden]

I thank my hon. Friend for her contribution and for her powerful speech during this debate. She is a tireless campaigner on this; I really look forward to working with her and the APPG on lots of these issues, and particularly on that stigma. She raises an excellent point about the role of employers in ensuring that there are supportive workplaces that can talk about health conditions that women experience, to make sure that they thrive at work. She mentioned the cost to our wider economy, and I thank her for doing that; it really recognises the significance of this issue and why we need to absolutely support those women across workplaces, and to work with employers to do that.

Turning to equality action plans, we are also working with employers to help women to thrive at work, and on how they can support women’s health much more proactively. Ahead of International Women’s Day, we were pleased to launch voluntary action plans to help those large employers address their gender pay gaps and improve support for employees experiencing menopause. As part of that announcement, we published a list of evidence-informed actions that employers can take—ones that are proven to work—and I thank my hon. Friend for raising that throughout her contribution.

Within the action plan, we are asking employers to commit to a minimum of two actions: one to address their gender pay gaps and one focused on supporting employees experiencing menopause, including those in both the perimenopausal and postmenopausal stages. Many of the recommended actions are also likely to benefit employees managing other menstrual health-related conditions, such as endometriosis, fibroids and polycystic ovary syndrome, which can significantly affect wellbeing and contribute to workplace disadvantage. It is a real opportunity for Government and business to work together to drive forward that meaningful change to improve workplace equality, and a huge step forward in supporting women’s health in the workplace.

We are also taking further action to address the barriers that menstrual health can raise in the workplace through Mariella Frostrup’s recent appointment as the Government’s women’s employment ambassador, building on her significant achievements in the past 18 months as the menopause employment ambassador. In this expanded role, she will champion women’s health across the life course, working with employers nationwide to strengthen workplace support, raise awareness of key health conditions and highlight the vital economic contribution that women make.

Prior to my appointment as a Minister, I worked with the founder of Endometriosis UK’s Calderdale and Kirklees branch, a formidable woman named Natalie Greenwood, to connect her organisation with trade union members locally and employers and officials across the UK, to ensure that workplace policies are inclusive of women with menstrual conditions. I encourage all hon. Friends and petition signatories to take action in their constituencies so that we can all, together, work with our employers to support women in the workplace. With the right workplace support, we can unleash the full talent, creativity and potential for women across the country. That is good for women, business, our economy and our country. 

Following Sir Charlie Mayfield’s independent review, we are taking broader action through the keep women working programme, which hon. Members have mentioned today, to help more women to stay in work. In response to that review, the Government have launched the vanguard phase, working with employers of different sectors, sizes and regions all across the country to test the practical ways of improving workplace health support. That vanguard phase will consider a range of insights through different lenses, including women’s health. We are also establishing a new workplace health intelligence unit to build that evidence base and support benchmarking. That sits alongside our £1 billion a year pathway to work programme. 

Throughout this debate, colleagues have rightly touched on the problems with diagnosis and asked for an update on the women’s health strategy, which I will turn to, but I can reassure everyone across the House that their powerful contributions and the points they raised for colleagues across Government will be raised with my health colleagues. This is not an area that just sits in my Department and with employers; we are committed to it across Government.

I have heard personal stories, including from colleagues here today about women outside this room who have spent too many years seeking answers, being misdiagnosed, having symptoms minimised or being passed from service to service. The experiences highlighted in Endometriosis UK’s recent report underlines why that early-year diagnosis and consistent, compassionate care must be central to our approach. From our introduction of Jess’s rule, requiring GPs to reconsider diagnosis where symptoms persist, to the roll-out of Martha’s rule, which colleagues will be aware of, we want to ensure that women’s concerns are not dismissed.

The shadow Minister mentioned the impact that community diagnostic services can have, which is why we are expanding access to diagnostic services and rolling them out country wide for women. Last month, there were 106 centres offering out-of-hours appointments for women to get those vital tests around work and caring responsibilities, and I really welcome the work of my colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care.

We are also modernising how specialist care is delivered. In September, we announced our new online hospital, NHS Online, which will be unconstrained by geographical boundaries, better aligning clinical capacity with patient demand. Earlier this year, we confirmed that menstrual problems, often a sign of conditions such as endometriosis, will be the among the first nine conditions available for referral from 2027. Those details are being worked out ahead of next year’s launch.

However, we completely understand that better care also depends on better understanding and improving public and healthcare profession awareness of menstrual health conditions, to reduce stigma and ensure that symptoms are recognised rather than normalised or dismissed. My hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood Forest (Michelle Welsh) made such a powerful point around how period pains are considered to simply be painful and women and girls across the country should expect that; improving awareness is key to dealing with that. The General Medical Council has strengthened women’s health representation in training, and since last year has required UK medical graduates to pass that medical licensing assessment, to encourage better understanding of women’s health problems. That assessment includes topics on women’s health and endometriosis.

Before I conclude, I must touch on the women’s health strategy, which is really welcome. We have made strong progress turning the commitments in the last Government’s women’s health strategy into tangible action. Our renewed strategy will set out how this Government will take further steps to improve women’s health as we deliver the 10-year health plan. It will also address the gaps in the 2022 strategy, and go further to create a system that listens to women, tackles health inequalities and makes progress on conditions such as endometriosis. Renewing that strategy will help identify and remove enduring barriers to high-quality care, such as those extremely long wait lists for diagnosis, and ensure that professionals listen and respond to women’s needs. I am sure colleagues will be—and already are—engaging with my colleagues in the Health Department on that.

To conclude, I once again thank my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley for leading the debate, the hon. Members in the Chamber for their powerful contributions and Michelle for her brave action that made this deeply important debate happen. I assure Members and petition signatories that I recognise the significant impact of menstrual health conditions, and I will consider all the points raised today as I continue to engage with stakeholders, with the APPG and with excellent Members across the House who are formidable in running their campaigns and raising this issue at every single opportunity—I thank them for that. We must ensure that lived experience continues to shape policy.

17:45

[Paul Davies]

Again, I thank Michelle. She has been referred to a number of times; without her, the debate would not be happening. I thank her for driving the petition; it has facilitated an excellent debate. It has certainly been humbling to listen to hon. Members talk about their lived experiences. I was fortunate that Leah allowed me to tell her story, and it is her story. Many Members said quite difficult things, and it very clearly demonstrates the need for change. There is no question whatsoever: the status quo is not acceptable. It is not just something that is nice to have; it is absolutely key—it is essential—to ensure that we improve women’s lives—and young girls’ lives as well, because they are going through this. This is not just about somebody in their 20s, 30s or 40s: it impacts them, obviously, but this is about some of our young people as well.

This is also very much about equality. My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington) referred to the difference in men’s health research—Viagra was a good example. That is not to diminish the needs around that but, when you compare that with the work in this area, it is about equality of treatment in our healthcare systems, in the views about what we should be doing and in the workplace. We have covered that in quite great depth.

It amazes me that the taboo and stigma around menstrual health still exists; I find that beyond my comprehension. We have two daughters, and that was never the case in our house whatsoever. In fact, I was given the orders to go and get the tampons and the various products—I would be ringing from the supermarket and asking, “Which ones do you need now? Is it the blue or the black box?” We need to be having those open discussions. Men need to start talking openly about this. This is not some dirty secret; this is normal and natural, and we should celebrate it because, as hon. Members have said, none of us would be here otherwise, would we?

Diagnosis is crucial, which has been raised time and again. That is the case with so many issues, but with this one it is even more stark. I have spoken, like many Members, about cancer diagnosis; this far outstrips that issue. An average wait of nine years and four months is absolutely incredible and unacceptable. We have to change that.

Research into treatment needs to take place. Too many easy decisions are being made, saying it is about hysterectomies and so on. From what I understand, I do not believe that enough research has been taken around treatment. Sometimes, procedures that impact a woman’s life very intensely are followed when they may not be needed.

I thank Michelle again—we will have to keep thanking her, over and over. I hope that, from her perspective, this debate has helped expose some of the issues. I know the debate will continue and, as the Minister says, the messages will go to the Government. I will finish with a phrase from my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes Central that is so powerful: periods are not painful; it is not normal. We need to put that up in blazing lights.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered e-petition 732342 relating to statutory menstrual leave.

17:50

Sitting suspended.

Disclosure and Safeguarding: At-risk Children

Monday 13th April 2026 Westminster Hall

16:30

[Lewis Atkinson (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 731497 relating to a disclosure and safeguarding mechanism for at-risk children.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell, and to open this important debate as a member of the Petitions Committee. The petition creator, Gemma Chappell, is the great-aunt of Maya Chappell, who was just two years old when she was tragically killed in September 2022 in County Durham. Maya was killed while in the care of her mother’s partner of nine weeks, Michael Daymond, who was subsequently convicted of Maya’s murder, while Maya’s mum was convicted of child cruelty and allowing her death. We are here today because of the extraordinary campaigning efforts of Gemma, her sister Rachael and other members of the family who refused to let what happened to Maya be forgotten.

Across the north-east of England, Maya’s smiling, innocent face has continued to be prominent, posing a devastating but simple question: will we as a society do everything possible to prevent a tragic death such as Maya’s from happening again? As a result, and aided by campaign support from The Northern Echo newspaper, more than 110,000 people have signed the petition asking that a new, proactive information-sharing safeguarding framework be put in place to protect at-risk children.

I would like to place on record my condolences to Maya’s family, as well as my admiration for how they are working on this issue through their grief. By telling Maya’s story in the media and in their campaign, they are encouraging others who have concerns about abuse to come forward and raise issues for investigation.

However, awareness is not the family’s sole aim. Gemma says it is time to move from expressions of sympathy to action. To spur that action, Maya’s family told me in our conversation in advance of today that they want every MP here to have a vivid idea of who Maya was. She was a loving, happy, adventurous child who enjoyed nothing more than running around the park and who loved Peppa Pig. Rachel calls her “the smiliest girl”. Maya had a notably sweet tooth, and her family remember her cheeky look as she ate two slices of cake at another child’s holy communion—and then went back for more. Maya was learning how to talk, and she had only just started speaking before she died. Her favourite words were “park”, “Peppa” and “daddy”.

As a parent, it is hard for me to comprehend the pain of losing a child, not least in such awful circumstances. Maya’s dad, James, was an important and loved part of her life. He raised concerns after seeing marks on her body, but those queries were dismissed by Maya’s mum. He was so concerned that he contacted police to ask about Daymond’s background, but Maya’s mum falsely claimed that she was not seeing him any longer, and that was accepted without corroboration.

Gemma is clear that we must not shy away from the awful realities of this case and what Maya suffered—the type of horrors suffered by the around 60 children a year who are killed by abuse or neglect. Maya was abused over a period of time; this was not a one-off event. She was abused for weeks. She was hurt. She lived in fear. Pathologists found a catalogue of injuries. In the end, Maya died as a result of being deliberately shaken and having a head injury inflicted.

The children such as Maya who are killed every year are not statistics: they are wonderful children, full of life and with their lives ahead of them. They are loved by many, but without a voice. Maya was too young to be able to alert anyone to the horror she was experiencing. It is for us in this House to be a voice for children such as Maya and to advocate for all possible steps we can take to prevent such deaths in the future.

I now come to the four specific asks in the petition, which together are being termed Maya’s law. The first ask is to

“Introduce a Child Risk Disclosure Scheme”

that would operate similarly to Clare’s law, or the domestic violence disclosure scheme, and Sarah’s law, or the child sex offender disclosure scheme, but that would be

“focused on the broader risk history of caregivers.”

The second ask is to

“Require statutory services (police, social care, health) to disclose relevant past”

information

“to the child’s parent or legal guardian when a risk is identified.”

The third ask is to

“Establish multi-agency response protocols, particularly where child contact, custody, or unsupervised access is being considered.”

The fourth ask is to

“Empower professionals to raise safeguarding alerts and initiate family court safeguarding interventions where known risks exist, even if not currently under active investigation.”

Thanks to the work of Gemma’s MP, my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon and Consett (Liz Twist), these matters—particularly the introduction of a child risk disclosure scheme—were subject to debate in this Chamber six months ago and received a response from the Children and Families Minister, whom we look forward to hearing from again today. That debate, and the Government’s response to the petition, highlighted that the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will take key steps to strengthen safeguarding, including introducing a new information-sharing duty between agencies, which will end misconceptions about when information can and cannot be shared. In the six months since the last debate, the Bill has continued its passage through Parliament, and it should hopefully finally become law in the next few weeks.

The petitioner welcomes the action taken in the Bill, but they want to see a clear timeline for implementation and they emphasise that any new duties can be implemented only with improved professional training and practice. The petition’s key ask, though, remains outstanding and is not included in the Bill: strengthening the right of parents and close family members to request and to be proactively given information about the risks that other adults might pose to a child.

As part of my preparation for the debate, I had the opportunity to speak to a range of organisations working to protect children, as well as to organisations involved in existing disclosure and notification schemes, including Operation Encompass, which ensures that schools and, soon, early years education providers are notified when a child is at a home where there has been an attended incident of domestic abuse.

A child risk disclosure scheme along the lines requested in Maya’s law would be a significant undertaking. It would need to be clear about thresholds. For example, would only convictions be disclosed, or would wider intelligence about risk be too? I note that, last month, the Government announced they would create a new child cruelty register, following campaigning from the adoptive mother of Tony Hudgell. Will the Minister say a little about how the Government envisage the information held in that register being disclosable and to whom? Could that serve as the first step to the wider disclosure scheme that the petition seeks?

Any disclosure scheme would also have to specify who has the right to request or receive information. It is important to note at this point the range of different family structures that safeguarding, in practice and law, must operate with. In many cases, including Maya’s, a child’s parents may be separated. In some circumstances, wider family members, such as aunts, provide important supplementary caring roles, and their involvement is a contributing factor in strengthening the safety of a child. It is important that the professionals involved have the time and curiosity to understand the different structures and dynamics of the families they are working with.

In Maya’s case, disclosure was directed towards her mother, who tragically did not ensure her safety. In the review of Maya’s death, it was recommended that agencies should have shown greater professional curiosity and follow-up when a separated father such as James shared worries about his child. Across all serious case reviews of child deaths, the failure to share information between professionals is the most common issue identified and the main area where improvement could prevent harm.

However, it has also been flagged to me that there can sometimes be risks of sharing too much information beyond professionals, depending on the relationship dynamics of a particular family. Operation Encompass notifications are limited to trained recipients of information in professional settings. Gemma’s view is that the benefits afforded by proactive sharing would outweigh such risks, and she wants any disclosures to be as full as possible. I would be grateful if the Minister set out in his response what opportunities there are safely to increase the information available to families about the risks that children face, whether that be through a disclosure scheme or other mechanisms.

Everyone I have spoken to recognises that any new disclosure scheme would require significant resourcing in order to be implemented appropriately. I have heard consistently that resources too often do not meet demand in the current safeguarding system, with many organisations concerned that police forces do not have the capacity to meet the growing requirements on them. Can the Minister say something about the level of resources he envisages will be required to implement measures in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill? Can he also say whether, following implementation of steps such as the unique child identifier, which may in time enable more automated sharing of information between agencies, there will be a release of resource that could then be utilised for disclosure schemes such as that sought through Maya’s law?

Maya’s family believe that a disclosure scheme would have made a big difference in their tragic case, but they know that keeping children safe also requires child-focused services that can provide proactive and independent assessment of a child’s wellbeing and safety. That is a matter not of legislative change, but of clear service standards and proper resourcing. The Government rightly highlight their commitment to expanding early support for families, including through family hubs, but can the Minister say a bit more about his assessment of the wider services that contribute to safeguarding, especially health visiting, which the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children has raised particular concern about? Maya did not receive the health visitor visits she should have, and such a visit could potentially have resulted in someone spotting the abuse she was being subjected to. Health visitor numbers have fallen by 43% since 2015, and some health visitors report caseloads of up to 1,000 families. One in five children does not receive their final health visitor review at age two—the age Maya was when she was killed. How do the Government plan to close that gap? Given that we know that child deaths from abuse and neglect are concentrated in the infant years, does the Minister believe that health visiting should be a priority area for investment in the forthcoming NHS workforce plan?

I will draw my speech to a close with a reflection on the emphasis by Maya’s family on the need for urgent action. It is frustrating to me—I am sure that it is to other Members as well, but it is perhaps particularly frustrating to a new Member of Parliament—that the landmark child protection legislation introduced by the Government, the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which we voted on for the first time in January 2025, has still not completed its passage through Parliament to become law. Although proper legislative scrutiny is of course necessary, I think it is fair to say that the public do not understand why it takes so long to pass changes in the law through this place. I think MPs and peers of all parties need to reflect on how we work here and how that impacts on the pace of change that families such as Maya’s rightly demand.

When that law is enacted, what can each of us do to ensure that its changes are implemented as quickly as possible? Perhaps the Minister can say whether an implementation timescale will be published and reported back on. How quickly can we get to the point at which further changes, including a disclosure scheme bearing Maya’s name, are possible? Her family expect action, the 110,000 signatories of this petition expect action and our constituents expect action—action to ensure that fewer children are killed by abuse and neglect, action to share more information and action to develop better safeguarding systems to protect wonderful, smiling children like Maya. I look forward to hearing Members’ contributions to this important debate.

18:13

[Liz Twist (Blaydon and Consett) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central (Lewis Atkinson) for introducing the debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee and the petitioners, and for setting out clearly the need for a child risk disclosure mechanism for at-risk children.

What happened to Maya Chappell was a tragedy. It was a failure across our public services that led to the death of a toddler. It should never have happened and must never happen again. I am here to speak as the constituency MP for Maya’s great-aunts, Gemma Chappell and Rachael Walls, and her many other family members, including her father, James Chappell, who have driven this campaign and have worked so hard to get more than 110,000 signatures. This is not only their campaign: it has brought together our local community in Consett and people across County Durham and from every constituency. It is a campaign that says, “This must stop.”

We must not just learn from Maya’s death but act to protect vulnerable and at-risk children. This coming together is the tireless work of Maya’s great-aunts, Gemma Chappell and Rachael Walls. I pay tribute to them for drawing all of us into their campaign and working with other families who have lost children through abuse to achieve that change. There are too many children to mention, but Gemma and Rachael have worked with the families of Star Hobson, Daniel Pelka, Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Tony Hudgell, who survived but still bears the scars. I know the pain they have felt and are still feeling, and I commend them for their work.

The system failed Maya. Her father, James, noticed bruises and approached Durham’s First Contact service with his concerns about the mother’s new partner, Michael Daymond. He was told to contact the police, who processed the matter under Clare’s law and Sarah’s law. However, an officer simply phoned Maya’s mother, who lied and said that the relationship was over. The police closed the case without even the courtesy of a single face-to-face visit or seeing Maya. The safeguarding review explicitly called out that lack of professional curiosity.

Those failures clearly show that there is still a gap that needs to be addressed. That Maya’s case was reported under Clare’s law and Sarah’s law and there was still not a single home visit shows that there is more to be done. Both laws are police-led schemes. Sarah’s law covers only convicted child sexual offenders and Clare’s law focuses on domestic abuse against an adult partner. Neither scheme protects a child in their own right from an adult with a history of non-sexual physical abuse, neglect or coercive control. Unlike the previous two laws, Maya’s law would place a statutory duty on multiple agencies, including the police and healthcare and social care providers.

[Robbie Moore (Keighley and Ilkley) (Con)]

I, too, commend the hon. Member for Sunderland Central (Lewis Atkinson) on his excellent opening speech on behalf of the petitioners. Star Hobson, who was murdered in 2020, was a constituent of mine. The findings of that case highlighted dysfunctionality in the reporting across all the safeguarding organisations that were ultimately responsible. I absolutely support Maya’s law and the recommendations in it. Does the hon. Member for Blaydon and Consett (Liz Twist) agree that when safeguarding concerns are raised, all organisations should be duty bound to feed into the process in the best interests of the child?

[Liz Twist]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I know that Gemma and Rachael have worked very closely with Star Hobson’s family to ensure that lessons are learned and action is taken. That is why there is such widespread support for this proposal.

Maya’s law would place a statutory duty across multiple agencies, including the police and healthcare and social care providers, proactively to disclose relevant risk histories to a child’s protective parent or guardian. Maya’s law could then trigger protective action based on documented patterns of concern, closing the dangerous gap where abusers hide because they do not yet have a formal criminal charge.

The death of Maya Chappell is not, sadly, an isolated incident. It is part of a devastating national pattern, which is of great concern. Across the country, 35% of child homicides—the murder of someone under 16, with their whole life ahead of them—are committed by a parent or step-parent. Those are the people a child is meant to trust the most. More than 50% of serious case reviews cite communication failures as a primary cause of child deaths. That represents a serious and persistent failure to protect children in their own homes.

In January, the Government formally responded to this petition, stating that they are

“not minded to introduce the elements of a Child Risk Disclosure Scheme requiring police to disclose information to parents and guardians”.

With the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill in its final stages, there will be real improvements in child protection, with multi-agency child protection teams and other measures being introduced, but there is still a flaw within the Bill. Although clause 4 does, for the first time, require professional agencies such as local authorities, education providers and NHS trusts to share information, it misses the key point in Maya’s law—it does not mandate the disclosure of any information to the protective non-abusive parent. Sharing data between agencies does nothing—did nothing—to help a father like James Chappell, who was left in the dark while his daughter was murdered.

The Minister has been very helpful over the last year, but I want to ask him some specific questions. Will he take steps beyond data sharing between professionals to guarantee the right of the protective non-abusive parent to be informed of a risk that threatens their child? Will he introduce measures to ensure that information received by professionals in all agencies is acted on consistently and swiftly, and shared with protective parents or carers, to ensure that children are protected from harm?

I hope that the Minister will continue to work so that tragedies like Maya’s murder never happen again. I know that hope is shared by the 110,000 petitioners, and by Gemma, Rachael, James and the whole community of Consett and County Durham. Our children deserve no less.

18:23

[Luke Akehurst (North Durham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central (Lewis Atkinson) for introducing the debate, and my constituency neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon and Consett (Liz Twist) for her excellent speech. I pay tribute to the family of Maya Chappell, including her great-aunts, Gemma and Rachael, for their tireless advocacy on behalf of children up and down the country.

I have been contacted by constituents horrified by the tragic death of Maya Chappell in County Durham. Existing frameworks, which often focus on adult victims rather than child-specific risks, failed to protect Maya. There is clearly a gap that needs to be filled to ensure that we are protecting children from non-sexual physical abuse risks. The cost of inaction could not be higher. When the system fails to pick up on the risks facing a child, the most devastating consequences can follow and young lives can be lost. Maya’s death ought to compel us to do better to protect children.

In my constituency, more than 6,000 people signed the petition that led to this debate, which is the second highest number of signatures in any constituency in the country. I am grateful to them for using their voices to raise awareness of what happened to Maya and to prevent it from happening ever again. County Durham is a place with a proud tradition of strong communities that look out for each other. That has been demonstrated by the strength of feeling made clear by my constituents and the constituents of neighbouring MPs about this tragedy.

Today’s debate is an opportunity for Parliament to match that spirit with concrete action to safeguard children, not only in County Durham but across the country. That is why I am backing my constituents’ call for the introduction of a child risk disclosure scheme that would be similar in structure to previous steps forward in protecting people from violent crime, such as Clare’s law and Sarah’s law, but explicitly tailored to children. Such a scheme would mandate proactive information sharing among police, social services, health and other bodies about the risk of caregivers committing such awful crimes before it is too late.

Alongside more than 100,000 people across the country, this campaign is backed by the Durham police and crime commissioner, Joy Allen, and the North East Mayor, Kim McGuinness. Today, I join colleagues from the north-east of England and across the country in calling on the Government to introduce a child risk disclosure scheme, so that no family have to endure the heartbreak that Maya’s family have suffered, and we all do everything that we can to protect children.

18:26

[Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central (Lewis Atkinson) for securing this debate. I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to speak on this issue and for the petition, which has been signed by more than 110,000 people, as we have heard. That level of support reflects the simple truth that children are still at risk of falling through the cracks despite warnings being raised by family members.

At the heart of this campaign is Maya Chappell, a two-year-old girl from Durham who should still be with us. However, in 2022, she was murdered by the partner of her mother. Subsequent medical investigations revealed that she had suffered a host of injuries including severe brain trauma and internal bleeding. She should have had the chance to grow up, to be safe and to be surrounded by the love, care and protection that every child deserves, but that was cruelly taken from her by someone who should have provided that very care. This tragedy occurred despite warnings from Maya’s father and concerns from other relatives. Social services and police both had pieces of the puzzle, yet nobody was able to put those pieces together.

Running through child safeguarding reviews is the fact that information is often kept in silos. Whether in the case of Victoria Climbié in 2000, Daniel Pelka in 2012 or Dwelaniyah Robinson, murdered by his mother in my constituency just days after Maya Chappell, agencies were aware of some of the dangers but were not aware that other agencies had concerns. That is the Achilles heel of child protection: it is rarely the case that nobody knows anything, rather that everyone knows a little bit. That is why Maya’s law matters. Too often, our safeguarding arrangements operate in a reactive way. We wait for a threshold to be crossed, or a pattern to become undeniable, but children do not get that time back. In safeguarding, to delay is to increase that risk.

The Government’s response to this petition acknowledges that. The response says that

“proactive information sharing…is critical”

and it points to wider reforms through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, including a new duty to share information and broader multi-agency changes. I welcome any step that helps agencies work together better and to protect children earlier.

The campaigners’ concern, and the concern of many of us in this place, is that those reforms still do not guarantee that risk will be proactively identified, assessed and acted upon. That is the crucial point. The Government say that the system will be better at sharing information. Maya’s family ask harder questions: better at sharing with whom, at what point, and with what urgency, when a child may already be in danger?

Maya’s campaign proposes a child risk disclosure scheme, modelled in part on the principles behind Clare’s law and Sarah’s law, but focused on the broader risk history of caregivers. It calls for stronger and clearer multi-agency protocols when child contact occurs or custody is being considered, and for professionals to be mandated to raise alerts and proactively disclose a person’s relevant history of non-sexual child abuse or neglect to a child’s parent or guardian.

Any new system must be properly designed. It must make clear who makes decisions, what threshold is applied, what information is relevant, and which agency leads on these matters.

[Robbie Moore]

The hon. Member is making an excellent speech. Given the experience of the Star Hobson case in my constituency, where the grandparents were instrumental, does the hon. Member agree that we need a clear flagging system of risk posed to such children, and that information should be shared not just with agencies but with key family members who are raising concerns, whether they be parents, grandparents or anyone who fulfils a guardian role?

[Mary Kelly Foy]

I wholeheartedly agree; that was about to be my next point. Of course, the information must be shared with the relevant agencies, and whenever concerns are brought to those agencies they must also be raised with family members. None of this is a reason to reject the principle; it is a reason to do the work properly. The Government have to act on what Maya’s family are saying. They must recognise that, while the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill may improve information sharing, that is not the same as proactively identifying risk and acting before harm occurs.

This debate is a tribute to Maya’s family. What they have done in turning unimaginable personal tragedy into a campaign to improve the lives of other children across the country reflects a level of bravery and compassion that we should all be in awe of. Having met Gemma and Rachael several times, I know that I am. But we cannot let this be the end of it. This debate alone does not protect one more child—now we need action. Never forget: Maya should still be here. The least we owe her, her family and every child like her is a system that does not just collect information but proactively uses it to keep children safe.

18:33

[Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I thank my good and hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central (Lewis Atkinson) from the Petitions Committee for the way in which he introduced this important debate. I also pay tribute to my good and hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon and Consett (Liz Twist), my neighbour, for her work in leading this campaign.

I wish to register my support for the creation of Maya’s law. I do not propose to repeat the arguments that my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central made in his opening remarks, but we hope for a favourable response from the Minister on the four specific asks that he set out.

Maya was living in my constituency. She was just two years old. She was living in Shotton Colliery when her life was cut short. Her death was not the result of a single unforeseeable act, but the consequence of sustained abuse. During that time there were warning signs. Concerns were raised by her father and by other family members. Questions were asked, but unfortunately the safeguarding systems that are meant to protect our most vulnerable children failed to act.

Time and again, serious case reviews into child deaths tell the same story. Information exists, but it is not shared. Risks have been identified, but not escalated. Agencies are involved, but they do not always communicate or co-operate as they should. In fact, in over 50% of serious case reviews, communication failures are cited as a primary cause. As a result, children can and do fall through the gaps between the very services that are designed to keep them safe.

Maya’s law seeks to close those gaps and to move us away from a system that too often is reactive to harm and towards one that works to prevent harm. That means ensuring that information about potential risks to children is not only gathered but shared promptly between the professionals who need it, and as was stated earlier, shared with family members who raise those concerns too, so that there is a positive feedback loop and they know that the concerns they have raised have been acted upon and are not being filed away.

The proposed child risk disclosure scheme would build on existing frameworks, such as those that allow disclosures in cases of domestic abuse or known sexual offending, but it would go further. It would recognise that the danger to children does not always come from individuals who have previous convictions. Risks can arise in many forms and are often hidden in plain sight. By enabling professionals and, where appropriate, concerned family members to access and act on relevant information, Maya’s law would provide an additional layer of protection, one that is rooted in prevention and not simply in reaction.

We must also address the issue of thresholds. Too often, intervention comes only when a risk has reached a critical or even catastrophic level. Maya’s law asks us to consider whether we are waiting too long and require too much certainty before we act to protect a child. I welcome the fact that the Government have recognised many of these challenges and that they are being addressed in legislation such as the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. Such legislation will strengthen information sharing and hopefully improve multi-agency working.

Those steps are important and welcome, but I believe that we must go further and be prepared to take every action necessary to better protect children. Maya’s law is not just a technical change; it represents a shift in approach and a recognition that safeguarding must be proactive, not reactive or passive. That responsibility must be shared, not siloed, and when concerns are raised about a child they must be taken seriously and acted upon, with clear legal duties for professionals to act on any sign of harm.

Of course, we must strike the right balance. Sharing sensitive information is not something to be done lightly, but where there is a credible risk to a child’s safety, we should be clear that protecting that child must always come first and be the priority. Children like Maya cannot advocate for themselves in the way that adults can; they rely entirely on the oversight, judgment and co-operation of the adults and institutions around them. When that system fails, the consequences are devastating.

Sadly, Maya’s story is not an isolated case, as other Members have identified. It reflects other tragedies that we have seen in recent years, each one raising the same question: could it have been prevented? Supporting Maya’s law means learning those lessons and, more importantly, acting on them. It means building a safeguarding system that is not only responsive but preventive. Above all, it means ensuring that when warning signs appear—as they often do, and as they did in this case—we act, so that we are never again left asking why more was not done.

I will finish by paying tribute, as many Members have, to Maya’s family and in particular her great-aunts, Gemma Chappell and Rachael Walls; I am so sorry for mixing them up earlier. They are a formidable double act, and we all admire their determination in campaigning to ensure that no other family has to endure such a loss. I am certain that this campaign will continue until Maya’s law is secure. I urge the Minister to work with colleagues across this House—this is not a party political issue, because we all agree about what needs to be done—to ensure that a child risk disclosure scheme becomes a reality at the earliest opportunity.

18:40

[Mr Will Forster (Woking) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Mundell. At the start of this year, I held a debate similar to this one, also in Westminster Hall, on local authority children’s services. I did so following the appalling abuse, torture and murder of a 10-year-old Woking constituent, Sara Sharif. What happened to Sara was heartbreaking for my whole community. I think that many people back home in Woking thought that what happened was so extreme and so awful that it was a one-off case. Today I have heard that it was not. This happens far too often. The circumstances of these deaths have a common theme: time and again, the state is systematically missing warning signs, and avoiding implementing formal recommendations or suggestions from petitioners that could reduce those risks. That must change.

I thank the hon. Member for Blaydon and Consett (Liz Twist) for dedicating much of her parliamentary career to improving child safeguarding; we all owe her a huge debt of thanks. I also thank the hon. Member for Sunderland Central (Lewis Atkinson) for the excellent way in which he introduced this e-petition debate. It is a very emotional debate, and he introduced it in a calm manner. There has been a huge outpouring of support for the campaign to fix child safeguarding issues, and the fact that the petition was signed by more than 110,000 people speaks volumes. The signatories are disproportionately from the north-east of England, and Labour Members present can be proud of their home region. Finally, I thank Gemma and Rachael for leading on the petition and ensuring not just that this petition is being debated in Parliament today but that this issue has been debated before. They are taking something that is hugely personally difficult for them and are trying to ensure that Maya has an amazing legacy.

The Liberal Democrats and I think the new disclosure and safeguarding mechanisms for at-risk children should be implemented. I am pleased to hear that we have cross-party consensus on this issue, but we need action. There is definitely a way that the state can share information better when a child is at risk, whether from a parent, a caregiver or someone else. It might be that the threshold to trigger full action is not met, but it is key to ensure that information is shared fully. A significant lack of information sharing was one of the reasons listed in the safeguarding report into Sara’s brutal murder. It was clearly an issue in Maya’s case, and it was also an issue in the Southport inquiry, which reported only today. It is a systemic issue.

I know I am meant to turn to my asks of the Minister towards the end of my speech, but I have to lead with this one. Some Ministers are responsible for cross-portfolio issues—the Security Minister for one. Does the Minister before us think that sharing information should be a cross-portfolio issue? Do the Government take it so seriously that they would task unblocking the issue to one Minister who could knock heads together across Departments?

I highlighted the case of Sara Sharif, which was a stark example of information sharing going horribly wrong. The day before she was murdered, social services went to visit her house. They went to visit the wrong house. They could have saved her. In court, the family talked about the concerns they had in Sara’s case. In Maya’s case, the family raised concerns about seeing suspicious bruises on Maya in the weeks before her death. She was a two-year-old girl. Several different relatives saw bruises on Maya, but when they flagged them with her mother, they were told that Maya caused them herself.

Maya attended two days of nursery but was then pulled out. The judge said it seemed clear that her mother feared staff would notice the bruises and report them. In the case of Sara Sharif, I have said that a parent or guardian should lose the right to home educate if there are concerns about safeguarding. That is absolutely key. Should parents lose the right to pull their child out of nursery if there are concerns about safeguarding? I would welcome the Minister’s thoughts on that. How can we ensure that legislation is put in place to better protect our vulnerable children?

The bruises were brushed off by the person who should have protected Maya. In Sara’s case, the judge stated that “despicable treatment” took place in “plain sight”. I heard about the lack of professional curiosity mentioned in Maya’s and Sara’s cases, and that is tragic.

A lot of Members have talked about the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill making notable progress, and I am looking forward to supporting it when it finally comes back to us after being amended. The Bill is progress, but progress is not good enough when we are talking about protecting vulnerable children. It should go further and be implemented faster.

In my constituency, Ofsted reviewed Surrey county council’s children’s services just before Sara’s murder and rated it good. From what I know about child protection failings, I cannot see why it gave the council’s children’s services that rating. I have heard from special educational needs and disabilities parents who also cannot understand why the council was rated good. I am concerned about the quality of Ofsted’s investigations.

As with Surrey, the Durham Safeguarding Children Partnership commissioned a report examining the circumstances leading to Maya’s death. The report highlighted missed opportunities where agencies were meant to protect her but could have offered more support and guidance. It listed failure and missed opportunity. Durham county council’s children’s services were rated good just four months before Maya’s death. There are 66 authorities in England that are rated good. Is Ofsted good enough to protect vulnerable children if it keeps missing the warning signs?

The Minister and I have met many times to discuss child safeguarding issues. I appreciate his experience and thoughts on these issues, but we do not want to have another debate like this where other MPs raise deeply personal, traumatic things happening in their constituencies when the state saw warning signs but did not take them forward. I would welcome the Minister’s thoughts on how we can ensure better data protection and how we can improve Ofsted.

I think all of us support Clare’s and Sarah’s laws. Will the Minister confirm whether the Government are reviewing the success and impact of those laws? Once the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill is eventually implemented, will the Minister agree to monitor, as a matter of urgency, how the multi-agency assessments and the registry are working? If those measures are not good enough, will the Minister agree to introduce Maya’s law?

18:49

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I thank the hon. Member for Sunderland Central (Lewis Atkinson) for introducing this debate, and other Members for their contributions. In particular, I thank the hon. Member for Blaydon and Consett (Liz Twist), who described so movingly the circumstances leading to Maya’s death and the campaign led by her family. This important issue unites us across party lines, because it is about the safety of children and ensuring that we protect the most vulnerable members of our society. I pay tribute to the work of Maya’s family, who have called for new legislation to focus specifically on child abuse and neglect, which would seek to ensure that alarms are raised if caregivers pose a risk to children.

This petition received more than 110,000 signatures and calls for four significant changes. First, it calls for the introduction of a child risk disclosure system—CRDS—which would seek to capture a broader risk history of caregivers. Secondly, it seeks to require statutory services, including the police, social care services and health workers, to disclose relevant history to the child’s parent or legal guardian when a risk is identified. Thirdly, it seeks to establish multi-agency protocols, particularly where child contact, custody or unsupervised access are being considered. Fourthly, it seeks to empower professionals to raise safeguarding alerts and initiate family safeguarding interventions where known risks exist, even if not currently under active investigation.

Under the previous Conservative Government, several measures were introduced that provided a template for how the CRDS could work. For example, Sarah’s law was introduced in 2011, which established a child sex offender disclosure system. It allows an individual to formally ask the police whether someone who has contact with a child has a record of child sexual offences or poses a risk to the child for some other reason. In 2014, the last Government introduced Clare’s law, which established the domestic violence disclosure system, which enables the police to disclose information to a victim or potential victim of domestic abuse about their partner or ex-partner’s previous abusive or violent offending.

The shadow Solicitor General, my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and Malling (Helen Grant), has highlighted that, in some cases, such as with the perpetrators who abused Tony Hudgell, there is a risk that they will finish serving their sentence but questions about how they will be supervised and monitored will remain following that. My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston (Neil O’Brien) has raised the issue of information-sharing gaps with the Government. The Government need to consider how they can best support local authorities in delivering their child protection duties under section 47 of the Children Act 1989.

I hope that the Minister will agree that the priority is to ensure that all preventable abuse is indeed prevented. Given that more than half of serious case reviews cite communication failures as a primary cause, does the Minister agree that more needs to be done before an offence is committed? It should be a priority for the Government to ensure that safeguarding is co-ordinated, and that children do not fall through the cracks of the protection system. Those who are a risk to children should be monitored and managed. Can the Minister outline how the Government will ensure that safeguarding is prioritised? The UK Government’s actions need to support safeguarding data sharing, including at a local level, because we must not risk safeguarding becoming a postcode lottery where some areas are more at risk.

I very much hope that the Minister appreciates the sentiment of the tireless campaigners who brought this petition: that one death that could have been prevented is one death too many.

18:53

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Josh MacAlister)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central (Lewis Atkinson) for securing this debate, and for doing so in a way that builds on the important debate held in this Chamber on 14 October, secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon and Consett (Liz Twist). I also thank all the Members who have contributed to this debate today from across different parties and have recognised the amazing young children whose lives were tragically cut far too short.

I also want to reiterate what I said on 14 October because it underpins the whole debate: no child should ever suffer at the hands of someone who was entrusted with their care and

“no family should endure such a loss.”—[Official Report, 14 October 2025; Vol. 773, c. 94WH.]

I want to recognise Maya’s family, in particular Gemma and Rachael who I have had the privilege to meet and spend time with over the past few months. Their unwavering determination took the petition from more than 6,000 responses back in October to 110,000 when it closed in February. I am grateful to them for giving up their time to meet with not just me, but my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and officials from the Home Office. I am grateful for their ongoing, tireless campaign to bring about change.

Through their petition, they are calling for the creation of a child risk disclosure scheme known as Maya’s law, which would require statutory services to disclose relevant past history when a risk is identified, establish multi-agency responses with protocols, and empower professionals to raise alerts where known risks exist. Changes to deliver the goals of Maya’s law are, I believe, in train. We are taking a number of steps to further strengthen existing schemes and improve multi-agency working. I hope to set out in some detail how the Government are doing that.

At the moment, the Government are taking action to strengthen information sharing in particular in three separate but complimentary ways. First, through strengthening the child sex offender disclosure scheme, which been referenced throughout the debate; secondly, through the introduction of a child cruelty register, which was not something on the cards when we last had this debate in October; and thirdly, through introducing a new information sharing duty in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. Those changes cover different aspects of sharing information; they are changes that will come into effect in law and some of them are new since the debate we had at the end of last year.

As referenced in the petition, Sarah’s law already allows members of the public to make an application to the police for information where they have a child protection concern, enabling the police to disclose information to those best placed to safeguard a child from harm. Although formally known as the child sex offender disclosure scheme, it extends well beyond those offences to the disclosure of any relevant information that the police hold that is necessary to protect a child. That may include previous convictions for child sexual abuse, a history of child cruelty, domestic violence or intelligence relating to violent or sexual offences. The maximum timescale for Sarah’s law applications to be completed is 28 days from start to finish unless extenuating circumstances justify an extension. Where an imminent risk of harm to a child is identified, the police must take immediate action to safeguard those at risk.

Sarah’s law does not rely solely on applications from members of the public; it also provides a framework for the police to make proactive disclosures when they believe a child is at risk of serious harm. For example, if the police become aware of an adult with a conviction, caution or charge for child abuse having unsupervised access to a child, they can and will disclose that information to the person best placed to protect that child—usually a parent, carer or guardian—whether or not a Sarah’s law application has been made.

That is the current situation, which goes far beyond just cases of child sexual abuse, but in the Crime and Policing Bill currently before Parliament the Government are going further by strengthening Sarah’s law and placing it on a statutory footing. The clauses in that Bill will mean that chief police officers will have a statutory duty to follow the Secretary of State’s guidance, which will be issued shortly after the passage of the Bill on Sarah’s law. In practice, that will reinforce and strengthen the police’s responsibility to make disclosures whenever necessary to protect a child.

In addition, the same Bill will establish a new child cruelty register. That will require adults convicted of child cruelty offences to notify the police of key changes in their circumstances in the same way that registered sex offenders need to at the moment. That improves the visibility of known risks and supports police to make informed decisions, including where disclosure under existing schemes, such as Sarah’s law, may be necessary to protect a child. At this point, I want to pay particular tribute to Tony Hudgell’s family for their campaigning on this specific change.

Finally, through our Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, we are addressing long-standing misconceptions about when information can and cannot be shared. We are introducing a new information-sharing duty and placing a clear legal obligation on police, children’s social care, health and other relevant agencies to share information to safeguard children. That responds directly to findings from, among others, the independent review of children’s social care, which I led before being elected to this House. It found that despite existing legislation there were both perceived and real barriers to sharing information between different agencies. We have worked closely with the Information Commissioner’s Office, practitioners and other Government Departments to ensure that the duty supports sharing across the full breadth of safeguarding or when promoting the welfare of children. That, along with the single unique identifier—which I referenced in the debate on this matter in October—will help professionals build a clearer picture of a child’s life.

Crucially, and relevant to Maya’s story, the information-sharing duty requires practitioners to share information with each other about other individuals in a child’s life where that information is relevant to safeguarding or promoting a child’s welfare. More robust information sharing will enable practitioners to act on and inform families of concerns appropriately. It also makes clear that any information that could protect a child should be shared at the earliest opportunity to prevent harm. Once the Bill is passed, I will be eager to fully involve Gemma and Rachael in the early drafts of the statutory guidance that would deliver on this commitment in the Bill. There will be an implementation plan published imminently after the Bill, and I am just as eager as my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central to see that the Bill is passed soon.

I also want to underscore that there have been debates in this House about the issue of malicious allegations. These are often made and are a feature of the children’s social care system where we have complicated family circumstances and people coming forward with information that may not always be wholly accurate. With that being a large feature of some of the information that services have access to, we should note that we need to design information-sharing systems that account for those kinds of malicious allegations.

[Lewis Atkinson]

I thank the Minister for his response and the very welcome commitment that he has made to involve the family in the development of the statutory guidance. As he alludes to, family circumstances differ significantly and the person in the family best placed to keep a child safe may or may not have parental responsibility—in some cases, it may be a grandparent, an aunt or so on. Will the Minister ensure that the statutory guidance reflects that in terms of the wider disclosure beyond just parents?

[Josh MacAlister]

My hon. Friend is quite right to highlight that the question for children’s social care teams and anyone involved as a statutory safeguarding partner for these children needs to be: who is around this child who loves and cares about them? That will differ significantly among children. The hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) mentioned a case where it was the grandparent who was a really important part of a child’s life and was missing from the picture. We need to make sure the statutory guidance reflects that among children it will often be very different.

Strengthening child protection is this Government’s absolute priority, which means acting early so that the right support is in place before harms occur. That is why we are delivering landmark reforms by overhauling children’s social care, not just through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill in the ways that I have highlighted, but with £2.4 billion of investment in changing our family help and child protection systems. We are also introducing multi-agency child protection teams, which will be mandated through the Bill, enhancing the child sex offender disclosure scheme and introducing the new child cruelty register. Together, those reforms put learning into action.

I hope to continue working with Gemma, Rachael and other family members who have been affected by these awful tragic stories to strengthen the implementation of these reforms, as well as others in the future. They reflect the loud call for change that this petition rightly demands. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central for opening this debate, and all those who have contributed to it. Let us honour Maya’s memory with not just words but change as soon as possible, so that no child is left unprotected, and no family unheard.

19:05

[Lewis Atkinson]

I thank all Members for contributing to this important and serious debate. As we can tell from the Members present, this issue has a particular north-east focus, because it was our part of the world where Maya lived and was loved, and where she was tragically killed. However, this issue is far from specific to the north-east, as the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Woking (Mr Forster), made clear when he referred to the case of Sara Sharif. The hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) also made that clear.

Too many children across the whole country are killed by abuse and neglect, and I really welcome the Minister’s commitment to involving the family in the development of the statutory guidance, and the recognition that, in many cases, families come in different shapes and sizes. They sometimes have different dynamics, and social workers and other agencies need to have the professional space and time to figure out who in any family is best placed to help safeguard a child. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill delivers on the Government’s commitment to introduce a duty to share information between agencies, which is absolutely right and welcome. However, there will always be a family member who potentially has additional information. They will love the child as they are, and—no disrespect to any professionals involved—that is a key part of the safety picture for any individual child.

I welcome the Minister’s commitments on this issue. Let us hope that we can get this legislation passed, as well as the following statutory guidance, which will take us a step closer to Maya’s law and the progress and action that the family requires. I know that Gemma and Rachael wanted to ensure that Maya’s voice was heard in Parliament today, and I hope they feel that it has been. I thank all Members again, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon and Consett (Liz Twist) for the work she has done on this issue and for her contribution today.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered e-petition 731497 relating to a disclosure and safeguarding mechanism for at-risk children.

19:08

Sitting adjourned.