Baby Loss Awareness Week

Debate between Alicia Kearns and Yvette Cooper

Monday 12th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Yvette Cooper)]

May I say a huge thank you to everybody who has spoken in the debate this evening for the personal stories they have told, the tributes they have given to their constituents and the personal stories of constituents that they have told? This is a moment for the whole House to come together and reflect on the babies lost and on our responsibility to do everything we can to support families who go through the unimaginable and lose a baby or child, and to do everything we possibly can to prevent it happening to more families in the future.

I thank the Members who secured the debate today. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Andy MacNae) for the work that I know he has done on the APPG and for his courage in talking about his own experiences and his determined focus on the action that is needed. I also thank the right hon. Member for Godalming and Ash (Sir Jeremy Hunt), one of my predecessors, who I know championed patient safety and maternity safety in particular. It is hugely welcome that he is still speaking out so strongly and has sat here throughout the entire debate this evening.

I particularly thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood Forest (Michelle Welsh), who is doing such an incredible and invaluable job as our national maternity and neonatal adviser. I thank her for her work and the incredible job she is doing in ensuring that parents’ voices are heard, that babies are remembered and that change is driven forward for families in the future. Her work has been hugely powerful. I have seen the work that she has been doing with parents across the country and with the maternity taskforce.

I thank everyone, because no one should underestimate the courage that it takes to talk about some of the most devastating personal experiences in such a public forum and in a way that is all about helping and giving comfort to others. They have brought an empathy and humanity that, if we are honest, we do not always show in this place, but we have come together to show them this evening.

In particular, let me say that this debate is about Mallorie, Jasper, Jesse, Joshua, Nittaya, Chester, Kate, Harry, Alya, Aleah, Theo, Ida, Bran, Wynter, Harriet, Sebastian, Koupar, Teddy, Quinn, Aubrey, Grace, Poppy, Dexter, Luna, Theo, Siena, Rita, baby Ladybird and baby Collinge. We remember them all.

As my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer (Mr Charters) said, on this Thursday evening at 7 pm, hundreds of parents in every one of our constituencies will light candles at home to remember babies who they have lost. It is something that spreads across the world, from one time zone to the next, as a global wave of light to unite parents from every continent in an act of collective grief. We will go on social media and see the pictures of burning candles posted by mums and dads. For those families, the sense of loss does not go away and it does not grow lighter or less painful, but on that day of 15 October, there is at least the knowledge that it is shared and that together, we hold a candle up to an issue that for too long has been hidden, ignored or dismissed. We are saying to every family who have faced the pain of losing a baby, “You are not alone, and you deserve support.”

The hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Alicia Kearns) and the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) raised an issue that I want to refer to. Earlier this evening, I had a conversation with Gina Jacobs, who lost her stillborn son Robert 57 years ago. At the hospital, he was taken away, and she never saw his face. Only years later did she discover that he had been buried in a mass grave without her knowledge. Just imagine the heartbreak of losing a child, followed by the pain of realising that something so important and personal had been kept from her. Across the decades, many bereaved parents have lost babies in NHS hospitals and been denied any say in, or any information about, what would happen to their remains. On behalf of the Government, I issue a profound apology to those parents—I have issued that apology to Gina today, but I issue it to so many more like Gina who have sought answers over many years. I am sorry for the unthinkable pain caused by those historic practices, because what happened to those parents should never have happened, and we need to ensure it can never happen again.

While I have the time to do so, I want to also recognise the parents of baby Dexter from my constituency, because Dexter’s mum Sophie is in the Gallery this evening. I spoke to Sophie and Dale some months ago, before I became Health Secretary. Their story and Dexter’s story had a profound impact on me, and it is one of the reasons I am so determined to make maternity and neonatal care a priority for the NHS and for the Government. Dexter died in 2018, less than 24 hours after his birth, following hospital failures that were admitted years later. I have listened to Sophie talk about the concerns they had not being listened to and about failures in diagnosis, early intervention and treatment. They went through the unimaginable and were then unable to get answers, and eight years later, they are still navigating NHS complaints, regulators, legal processes, the coronial system and the parliamentary ombudsman, trying to get answers and accountability. I want to acknowledge Sophie’s determination and the courage it takes to be here today, and the commitment of so many parents who have been through the unimaginable and through that trauma, but who keep campaigning for others.

All of us in this Chamber have a responsibility to Dexter’s family and to every family represented in this debate—a responsibility to listen, to learn and to act. As Sophie said to me earlier, trust begins with truth, and if you cannot get answers about what has happened, that compounds the anguish and the distress. That is why I have made maternity and neonatal care a priority; it is also why I want to recognise the wonderful care that so many midwives, consultants, support staff and health visitors in our NHS provide when families need it most, right across the country. However, we also know the devastating stories where things have gone wrong, where families did not get answers, and where so much more needs to be done. As part of our new maternity and neonatal taskforce, we need to ensure that we have a new national action plan drawn up, but also that work is done to establish a new modern services framework of proper standards across maternity and neonatal care. That is crucial because 25 years ago, when I was a junior Health Minister, I had responsibility for maternity services. That was a full quarter of a century ago. I was pregnant at the time, so Members can imagine that I had a particular interest in maternity services.

One of the things that I announced at that time was that there should be a new set of standards, with a national services framework for maternity and child health. When I arrived in the Department as Secretary of State, I said, “What do we need to do to address the Amos report, the Ockenden reviews, the Kirkup review of Morecambe Bay and the many different reviews that we have had?” One of the responses I got was, “We need a modern services framework.” I asked how different that would be from the old framework, given that we would need to modernise the standards from the existing one. They said that the existing one does not exist, because it had just been allowed to lapse. We therefore did not have a set of national standards in place. We have to put that right, and I think there is collective determination on that. The hon. Member for Meriden and Solihull East (Saqib Bhatti) referred to the importance of national standards, and that is one of the things that needs to be done as part of the work of the taskforce, alongside the action plan.

Right at the heart of this has to be listening to parents and in particular to mothers. The hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Alicia Kearns) spoke powerfully about her personal experience of feeling that she was left having to make choices or that she had to fight to be listened to. Nobody—no parent, no mother—should be in that situation. One reason that it is so important that we legislate for and appoint a new independent maternity and neonatal commissioner is that this issue cannot simply be something where a spotlight is shone when we have a debate in this House, when a new review comes out or when particular Health Secretaries say, “This is a priority.” It has to always be a priority for our health service, because it is about the very start of a family’s life. It is about some of the most important things that our national health service does.

Many Members have talked about miscarriage, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friends, including my hon. Friends the Members for Aylesbury (Laura Kyrke-Smith) and for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Lizzi Collinge), who have talked about the importance of miscarriage care. We are working with Tommy’s to assess its findings in its miscarriage study, which is hugely important. It is important that miscarriage care is included as part of the modern services framework that we are drawing up. My hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury) importantly talked about the impact that miscarriage care had on his constituent. That needs to be a central part of those standards and how we provide support for families in those circumstances. We should never underestimate the impact that miscarriage can have at different stages in a pregnancy, and the deep distress that can come from miscarriage through to stillbirth through to loss in neonatal care. At every stage, we must be aware of the long-lasting impact that loss can have on the family and the trauma that can be caused, too.

Many Members referred to the importance of bereavement care and services. We are already putting additional investment of £9 million into bereavement suites. Seven-day-a-week bereavement services need to be the standard across maternity and neonatal settings. All trusts are reporting compliance with that, but we need to ensure that it is happening in practice. They have also been funded to provide specialist bereavement midwives. Those services are crucial, because every family needs time to grieve after losing a baby, and needs immediate support and care.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch (Katrina Murray) spoke of the importance of the employment law reforms, and the fact that bereavement leave is now allowed for pregnancy loss before 24 weeks. We know of the impact that such losses can have on families, and the importance of being able to provide support at that time. We are currently drawing up a new mental health strategy, and that needs to include not just post-natal depression but bereavement, and the distress and trauma that can be experienced as part of maternity.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Southall (Deirdre Costigan) spoke about inequality issues, such as the fact that black women have an increased risk of miscarriage, stillbirth and maternal mortality. It is shocking and deeply distressing that in the 2020s we are seeing inequalities of that kind, as well as seeing periods during which maternal mortality among some groups and in some areas has increased. That must be central to the work done by the maternity and neonatal taskforce. We will be setting out the targets and the progress that are needed and the action that we must take to address such inequalities, particularly those relating to ethnicity—we need to challenge racism—but also those involving deprivation.

The right hon. Member for Godalming and Ash (Sir Jeremy Hunt) and my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale referred to the normal birth ideology. There is no place for any ideology in childbirth: childbirth has to be about the mums and the babies and safety, and about what is right for the family. As my hon. Friend said, it has to be about safety. It has to be about informed choice, and it has to be about compassion. No mother should ever feel the pressure to live up to a particular kind of ideal birth. As we know, we are all different, and services need to reflect and support that.

The hon. Member for North Devon (Ian Roome) spoke of the challenges that he has been facing, and the challenges that mothers and families have been facing, in his constituency. I know that later this week he will meet my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood Forest, the national maternity and neonatal adviser. I have spoken several times to the NHS chief executive exactly about what is happening in North Devon. I know that, because this is a workforce challenge, the hospital is taking action to increase recruitment, and that is crucial. It is unfair for families to be worrying, at a time when they should be looking forward to the birth of a new baby, about having to travel for two hours because local services are not open. We are looking into ways of ensuring that there is appropriate support for getting those services open in North Devon, but we are also looking at the workforce issues in other rural areas where more remote services are crucial and need to be provided and sustained, and we will continue to consider maternity issues in that context.

The hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Alison Bennett) raised the important subject of Group B strep. We have a trial under way. There will be a report within the next 12 months, and the information and evidence will go to the UK National Screening Committee, which will examine the issue of testing. I thank the hon. Lady’s constituent, who I understand has been campaigning for a long time.

Let me also give a personal undertaking to my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Cat Smith) to follow up the issue of the baby loss certificates directly with the Scottish Government. It is unthinkable that she could be left in such a distressing situation, and that others will be in a similar distressing situation, because of a lack of co-ordination between Governments with which we should be able to deal.

I hope the House forgives me if I have not covered the other points that have been made. I am keen to follow up on the important points about CPR training, maternity triage, regulation and a series of other things, but I want to come back to a broader issue. It feels to me as though maternity services and neonatal services have not been taken seriously enough by the NHS and the Government for too long, and have too often been treated as a sidecar. Hospitals and acute trusts have a lot of things happening, but my sense is that the maternity unit has often been treated as a bit of a sidecar to the main hospital. Although there may be some brilliant work and support being done within a maternity unit, it is not always seen by the rest of the hospital and the rest of the trust, so when things go wrong, too often too little is done. When parents are not listened to and something goes awry with the support, care and compassion that are needed, often strong enough action is not taken to make sure that something is done.

In those cases, it has meant that we have had mothers and babies treated as second-class patients. Mothers and babies should never be treated as second-class patients, because one of the most important things that our NHS does is to be there at the very start of a new family’s life. If we get that right for a new family, it supports them for the rest of their lives. I recognise the remarkable and wonderful care provided in many places, but I still have a strong sense that, overall, our NHS has not been giving start of life, maternity and neonatal services the priority that they really need to be given.

[Alicia Kearns]

When the Secretary of State meets her officials and has this discussion, I urge her to cite what happened during the pandemic. Despite the fact that it was medically illogical, what did middle managers do in NHS hospitals? They said that women who were coming to give birth or to miscarry had to do so without their partners. People told me, “This is a nonsense, Alicia. Stop saying that women are being treated badly by the NHS. Women have given birth for thousands of years.” Women were mistreated during the pandemic and we were shown the maternity sidecar, exactly as the Secretary of State said. I say to anyone who stands in her way on this issue that she is absolutely right. We have the evidence of the last few years, and I urge her to use it.

[Yvette Cooper]

I take very seriously the points that the hon. Member makes, and I look forward to talking to her in more detail very soon.

The wider point that I want to make is that we are trying to implement many changes, and we are looking at different rules and different services. We are expanding Martha’s rule to all maternity and neonatal services so that there is a clear way—not just for women in labour and their families, but for staff in maternity services and neonatal services—to raise concerns, to ask for a second opinion and to make sure that we are building in the need to listen to families. However, all of this works only if it is part of a wider recognition that we have to give much greater priority to maternal and neonatal care.

The final thought that I will leave with people is that tonight’s debate has been about baby loss and the most distressing of circumstances, but we know that if support is really to be about giving every family and child the best start in life, it cannot just be about childbirth. It is about what happens throughout maternity and in those first few years as well. That is why I think one of the other most important things we are doing is restoring the Sure Start health services to family hubs right across the country and going back to co-ordinated support—every service coming together to support families and babies at the very start of their life. I again thank everyone who has spoken in this debate.

Arctic Security

Debate between Alicia Kearns and Yvette Cooper

Monday 19th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

We regularly engage with joint expeditionary force partners. Indeed, there were meetings around the joint expeditionary force last week, and I believe there are further such meetings later this week, which the Ministry of Defence is heavily involved in supporting. That is exactly because we take these shared security issues so seriously. We know that for a country like the UK our security depends on the alliances we build, including with close European allies through the JEF.

[Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Stamford) (Con)]

Greenland is being offered two options: to be sold or to be annexed. This is naked imperialism. The Government of Greenland have made clear that they will work with the US in any way necessary to protect our security and that of Europe, but I am afraid that beyond the vague diplomatic assurances of diplomatic activity and claims of being hard-headed, I am no clearer, from the statement, about what the Government are doing to keep us safe from tariffs and, more importantly, to protect our security and the sovereignty of Greenland.

[Yvette Cooper]

To be honest, I am surprised by that question from the hon. Lady, because she has experience in foreign affairs. She knows how diplomatic discussions take place and the urgency with which those discussions are taking place right now. She will understand the importance of those discussions. She will understand the importance of the collaboration with our allies and partners and how those discussions take place. She will also have seen the results of taking a similar hard-headed and robust approach to previous issues and the previous discussions we have taken forward. We will continue to do that. In terms of the people of Greenland, we have seen the protests on the streets in Greenland, and we have seen the strong views expressed by the people of the Kingdom of Denmark more widely. We will continue to support them and their sovereignty.

Venezuela

Debate between Alicia Kearns and Yvette Cooper

Monday 5th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

Promoting international law in the most effective way also means promoting the rules-based order and the rules-based alliances that we have. It means being able to raise issues around international law both publicly and privately in a way that has the greatest results to defend the rules-based order. That is what we will continue to do, and that, frankly, is what is in the UK’s interest.

[Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Stamford) (Con)]

Venezuelans are relieved to be free of Maduro’s tyranny. However, Venezuela risks remaining a failed state, rather than being a free state, unless the international community comes together. Oil companies are not state builders, nor are they capable of democratic capacity building or enabling political transitions. I was surprised that there was no mention in the Foreign Secretary’s statement of plans to evacuate British nationals if possible or of how many British nationals are in country. What phone calls has the Foreign Secretary had since this action with the leader of Guyana, a Commonwealth country and nation with whom we have an important relationship? If she has not spoken to that leader, why has she not?

[Yvette Cooper]

As I think I set out in my statement, there are an estimated 500 British nationals in Venezuela. We did look at all possible crisis responses over the weekend. We stood up the crisis facility in the Foreign Office to ensure that we were ready to respond if necessary at any point. The response did not go beyond the changed travel advice, and over the weekend British nationals were advised to shelter in place while what might be happening next was assessed. We have had some consular contact, but it has been very limited. We have been available to any British nationals who want our support, as we would continue to be.

We are also in contact with Commonwealth countries and overseas territories. The Minister responsible for the overseas territories, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), is following up with overseas territories that are particularly affected by instability in the region.

Terrorist Offenders (Restriction of Early Release) Bill

Debate between Alicia Kearns and Yvette Cooper

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 12th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. There is a danger that we are simply reacting to this situation in a hand-to-mouth way, rather than in a more strategic way that recognises some of the underlying issues that need to be dealt with over a long time. We may need further legislation, but that should be done in a thoughtful way, with proper scrutiny, not left until the last minute and, as a result, done in a breathless rush.

[Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)]

The MAPPA review provides exactly that opportunity. We need this emergency legislation to go through, but it is by reviewing the MAPPA process that we will see results. One of the most crucial changes that I would like to the MAPPA process is to include Prevent co-ordinators in MAPPA meetings, because Prevent co-ordinators can understand that someone newly released has come to their community and say, “That individual is still a threat for the following reasons. I can map this individual against the communities and groups that they might be a risk to.” This emergency legislation is important because, for example, if we had had it in place, Anjem Choudary would still be in prison, but the crucial change will be to MAPPA so that Prevent co-ordinators can know where Anjem Choudary has gone and can therefore provide a relevant analysis of what he will do.

[Yvette Cooper]

I completely agree. Having a link between Prevent programmes and the MAPPA process is extremely important. There is a question here for the Government about how the MAPPA review and the Prevent review are going to link together. The problem is that we do not have a chair in place for the Prevent review, and I am unsure of the Government’s plans for the timetable for the two different reviews. It might be helpful, in fact, if the Minister were able to say something in his winding-up speech about how the two reviews will interact and how the Prevent review will be put back on track with somebody in place.

What happens before a terrorist incident happens and what happens afterwards—whether that be in prison or probation or in assessment—need to be properly integrated, and the expertise in different parts of the system needs to be pulled together and effectively co-ordinated. We have known for some time that Sudesh Amman was due to be released this January, for example, so we need a more effective system to anticipate the challenges, because there have been previous opportunities to change the legislation.

We also need to address what happens at the end of the sentence, because my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) is right to describe this legislation as a sticking plaster if we do not look more widely. When the Parole Board decides that somebody still poses a serious risk, that person will still, however, have served their time after, say, another couple of years. If they still pose a threat to the public at that point, we still will not have addressed the heart of the problem. The former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, Lord Anderson, pointed out that if they are sufficiently dangerous to end up serving their whole sentence in custody, they will not have any further licensing conditions attached at the end of their sentence, nor will they be subject to further supervision.

In the past, we had control orders and imprisonment for public protection sentences to address such circumstances. The Minister will know that I opposed the removal of control orders, and we have had debates about the decision to end rather than just to reform IPPs. However, in their absence, the question for the Government is whether the existing arrangements with TPIMs, for example, are sufficient to address the circumstances for individuals coming out at the end of their sentence, having served the full sentence in custody, with no licence conditions attached. Do the Government have plans to address those individuals should they still prove to be a danger?

There is also a massive problem with what is happening in our prisons. The Chair of the Justice Committee has already raised this, but we do not yet have effective enough de-radicalisation programmes in prison. Former public prosecutors have warned that they have been underfunded. Academics point out that some prisoners who are willing to go on de-radicalisation programmes wait so long to get on them that they are released before they are able to do so. There are, of course, concerns about the effectiveness of the assessment of de-radicalisation programmes, the interaction between programmes that may work in the community but not in prison, and the best way to do this.

Nobody should ever pretend that this is easy or that there is a magical response to solve the problems. However, there are real worries that we are not doing everything we could in prisons. The concerns raised by Ian Acheson, who conducted an independent review of Islamist extremism in the prison and probation service, are really serious. He said that frontline prison staff were ill-equipped to handle the situation, prison imams did not possess the tools or the will to tackle extreme ideology, the intelligence gathering system was not working, and there were serious problems of lack of leadership and management and a lack of end-to-end systems. He concluded by saying that, frankly, the prisons are struggling to cope.

I heard what the Lord Chancellor said about things having moved on, but there is a problem in that we cannot judge whether that is right because the Government have refused to publish the entire Acheson report. I understand that there are sensitivities around radicalisation, but even Ian Acheson is not able to say, “Yes, all the problems are being addressed.”

There are continual reports of people being further radicalised in prison. These are cases not where de-radicalisation fails but where, in fact, there is greater radicalisation. Non-radicalised people who go into prison end up being converted not just to Islam but to extreme perversions of the religion that are, in fact, an ideology, not a religion.

A Wigan man was convicted of far-right extremism, but the judge concluded that this person would be vulnerable to further radicalisation and chose not to give him a prison sentence on that basis. We are in a very uneasy situation if our courts are reluctant to give prison sentences because they fear greater radicalisation. The prison system, which is supposed to be keeping us and our communities safe from extremism and terrorist threats, may instead be contributing to the problem and, in some cases, making matters worse.

I do not doubt the huge commitment and hard work of many people across our prison system to try to tackle radicalisation and extremism. However, the evidence we have seen from the outside is that the system simply is not working. It is not enough for the Lord Chancellor simply to give us his word that things have improved if there is no proper system of oversight or checks and balances to ensure that progress is being made. I urge the Lord Chancellor and the Minister to talk to the Justice Committee about what more can be done to ensure proper oversight so that we can be sure we are making progress on what is happening both inside and outside prisons.

We all have a shared interest in ensuring that extremists and terrorists are not able to threaten our way of life, to put people’s lives at risk or to threaten our communities and our democracy. There has often been cross-party consensus on the need to take a sensible approach to ensuring we protect both people’s safety and the values that terrorists challenge—the values of the rule of law and our democratic institutions. We need to challenge their ideology and work ever harder to make sure the systems that are supposed to address this can properly do so.

It is therefore not a surprise that we have cross-party consensus in support of the Bill today. This is a sensible and proportionate response to keep people safe and to address a genuine problem to which the criminal system has to adjust and adapt. It is also imperative on all of us to work further across parties to address some of the deeper, longer-term problems, on which the Government need to do more. I hope we will be able to work across parties on addressing those longer-term challenges so that we can do a better job of keeping us safe.