Member

This amendment is not radical; it is reasonable and humane. It offers up to 12 weeks’ paid leave for parents of a critically ill child who is over 29 days old. That is all, and it is long overdue. At present, no parent is entitled to any financial support in the first 90 days of their child’s illness. After 90 days, they can apply for disability living allowance, which would help with the costs of caring for their sick child; but even then, successful DLA applications can take up to 20 weeks to be approved. Of the families surveyed by It’s Never You, 90% believed that immediate financial support would have made a critical difference to the hardships they faced following their child’s diagnosis and treatment.