Employment Rights Bill

Lord Wigley Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 16th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to offer the strongest possible Green support for this amendment, and the support of many others who cannot be here today. The noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, has outlined the reasons for this amendment very clearly, and I am just going to make a couple of additional points.

In many cases, the ability of parents to be at their child’s bedside acting as an advocate is crucial to ensuring that the child gets the best possible medical treatment. There is a profound inequality here if financial circumstances prevent parents being at the bedside, giving doctors and other carers information about their child’s health and the child themselves.

This amendment would also enable the parent to maintain contact with the workplace. Rather than having to give up their job and deal with the mess later, there would be a continuing relationship that would hopefully work out for the best if the child comes home and things go back to something like normal.

I join the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, in paying huge tribute to Ceri and Frances for the campaign they have run for Hugh’s law. As the noble Baroness said, this is very much a legacy. I have to say that I am very surprised, because this week the Government responded to a final plea to back it. I hope the Minister may be about to stand up and offer something different, but the email suggested that that is not what we are going to hear today.

The briefing from the Hugh’s law charity points out that, with GoFundMe, people have to appeal to the public to fund their support for their sick child, meaning that they have to expose their suffering and pain. Unless funds are strictly designated to pay for medical treatment, the parents are then not eligible for any of the later government assistance that the noble Baroness set out, such as universal credit. If they have money from the public to support them, that cuts off government support. That is not covered in this amendment but is something that the Government should look at to make sure that, if a family in deep distress receives donations, that should not stop them getting other support.

With those comments, I strongly support the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, and I know that many other Peers will, so I hope that we might hear something positive from the Government.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, I intervene briefly to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, for introducing the amendment. Anyone who heard the interview on Radio 4 this morning could not but have been moved by the circumstances that are the background to the amendment.

I speak as one who had the experience of losing two young children. At the age of two and three, our children, Alun and Geraint, were diagnosed with a life-terminating condition. It was the week in which the 1974 election had been called and my wife and I had to decide whether I should remain working in industry at Hoover in Merthyr Tydfil or to stand. The question was how on earth we were going to face the circumstances in which both our boys would live perhaps for five, 10 or 15 years, but one thing was certain: both my wife and I could not continue to work. Caring for two boys who had learning disabilities and were gradually able to walk less and less, until they could not walk at all, was an emotional as well as a physical and, potentially, a financial challenge, which is where the amendment is relevant.

We were unlucky, and the unluckiness was double, as I have described. My wife was also expecting our third child at the time and we did not know whether that child would be affected by this condition. Standing for election and being elected to represent Caernarfon in the House of Commons meant a 30% reduction in my salary. My wife, who was a professional musician—a harpist—would not be able to continue her career thereafter and would lose her earnings altogether. Had it not been for the availability of the then mobility allowance and attendance allowance, both of which it was possible to get at the highest level for both children, we would not have been able to employ someone to help us in order to give my wife some relief while I was down in London doing my work here.

That situation continued. We had two other children, our daughter Eluned, who was born in the June following that February—she was all right and was not affected by the condition—and our son Hywel, who was born two years later, was not affected by it. So we were blessed by having two children who were not affected. But we saw what the reality could be of the financial pressures that come from that double disability. If it had not been for my parents living next door—my father had just retired, on a good pension—we could not have survived. We were subsidised by my parents, who were retired and in their 60s, and, putting that together with the attendance allowance and the mobility allowance, we could eke the money out and make things practical.

I am telling your Lordships this by way of background—it is not something that I talk about very often in this House, but it is directly relevant to this amendment. There are countless families who face these circumstances without having the support that we were lucky enough to get. I am sure that people of all parties, across the House, want to build a system whereby no parents are put in a position where they cannot look after their child and keep enough money coming in to eke things out. I support the amendment and thank the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, for bringing it forward. I wish the family who have been the motivation for this amendment every strength in the challenges that they face.

[Baroness Wyld (Con)]

My Lords, I can add very little to what has been said, particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley. I know that this House will be grateful to him for sharing a painful story. I took the Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Act 2023 through your Lordships’ House. It was a real honour to do so. As I have said, when I met the parents who were campaigning, they were not asking for the world—they appreciated the fact that businesses needed us to be proportionate as policymakers. Equally, they made a powerful case for the difference that that Act would make. I am hugely grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, for building on that Act, and to Hugh’s family for their briefing and campaigning. I assure her of my support in the Lobby tonight.