Preterm Birth Committee Report

Baroness Penn Excerpts

Friday 6th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, this has been an excellent debate so far, based on an excellent report. That is unsurprising, since it has taken place under the expert chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Patel. I will focus my remarks on the support that we give to parents who have had preterm babies, but first I want to touch on another aspect of the report—staffing levels.

We have had chronic shortages of maternity and neonatal staff for years, which affects so much of the delivery of what is in this report. The noble Lord, Lord Patel, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, have raised the concerns of the Royal College of Midwives that the current cohort of midwifery graduates are not confident of getting roles in the NHS when they graduate. I know that the Government are refreshing their long-term workforce plan, but when we can expect to see an updated plan? Will it specifically address midwifery? How will abolishing NHS England affect the delivery of that plan? Who will be responsible and accountable for delivery? How will that transition take place?

I turn to my main focus—the support that we give to parents at that very difficult time following a preterm birth. The report makes clear that many parents will spend weeks or months caring for their baby in a neonatal care unit. They have to deal with the alien environment of a neonatal care unit and the feeling of daily amputation in being separated from their babies, but witnesses also emphasised the practical and financial challenges that parents can face in these circumstances. Babies might be being cared for at multiple hospitals, sometimes a long way from home. The charity Bliss found that one in four families with a baby on a neonatal unit have to borrow money or increase their debt to manage. The introduction of neonatal care, leave and pay, which became a right in April this year, was a really important step forward in supporting parents at such a difficult time, and I pay tribute to all those—particularly my noble friend Lady Wyld—who worked to make that a reality.

With any such scheme, there are some limitations. If your baby spends six days or fewer in neonatal care, you do not qualify for any additional leave, despite mum and baby possibly having significant health concerns that need proper support. The leave is paid only at the statutory rate that we have for all parental leave, which is currently at around £187 a week.

Because we have such a poor system of paternity leave in the UK, with fathers entitled to only two weeks of leave, this has a particular impact on dads’ and second parents’ ability to support mothers and their new babies at such a crucial time.

I will give an example from the charity Bliss. A baby is born struggling to maintain their temperature and spends three days receiving transitional care in hospital before being discharged. A few days later they are readmitted, as they are struggling to feed and have jaundice. They receive six days of care in hospital before being discharged. Neither episode of care lasted seven days or more, so no neonatal care leave is accrued. It is perfectly possible that, at precisely this point, a dad’s paternity leave has run out and he has to return to work, despite a premature and vulnerable baby who has had repeat hospitalisations being at home, and despite a mum who may have had a traumatic birth, or even if not, if she had a C-section she will still be in recovery from surgery, being left alone to care for herself and her vulnerable baby.

This is not to criticise neonatal care leave or pay in any way, but to say that parents of preterm babies, and indeed of all babies, would be far better supported if we had a proper system of paternity leave and pay in this country, which neonatal care leave and pay came on top of. We have the worst paternity pay and leave system in Europe, and the biggest barrier to dads taking proper time off when their babies are born is affordability.

As my noble friends Lady Wyld and Lady Owen have highlighted, family integrated care can make a huge difference for babies who are born pre term. But the report notes the potential disparity in access to that family integrated care for those on lower incomes. As a parent advisory group highlighted, fathers and non-birthing parents often have to return to work while their baby is still in neonatal care. Even mothers and birthing parents who are self-employed face this dilemma. This has a detrimental impact on implementing family integrated care and on parent-to-child bonding. If we increase paternity leave to six weeks paid at 90% of salary, with a cap for higher earnings, that will resolve the dilemma for so many families who experience preterm births.

The Employment Rights Bill currently being debated in your Lordships’ House gives us the opportunity to make that change. What is the Minister’s view on the impact that Bill will have on parents, particularly fathers and second parents of preterm babies? I think we have an opportunity to ease the burden for thousands of parents who struggle with the practical as well as emotional impact of having a baby pre term, whether or not they are in neonatal care, and I hope she will join me in seizing it.