Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, for building on the amendments that she and I tabled in Committee. I will speak to Amendment 100, to which I have added my name, but will not repeat the case I made in Committee. No doubt my noble friend the Minister will say that the amendment is unnecessary now that the Government have published their review of parental leave and pay, and that we should not pre-empt that review. I understand that and preface my remarks by saying how much I welcome that review, which I think will meet the warning of the Women and Equalities Committee that it must not lead “only to tinkering around the edges”. We are promised a comprehensive review, and comprehensive and fundamental it needs to be if it is to live up to the Prime Minister’s claim that it represents a landmark moment. This amendment serves a purpose in holding the Government’s feet to the fire by putting their own timeline into legislation. Really, six weeks of paid leave for fathers at the same rate as statutory maternity pay is the minimum we should expect. A recent policy briefing from the Institute for Policy Research at the University of Bath concluded that this change would represent an “important first step in delivering change” and would be crucial to improving fathers’ take-up of the leave. It suggested that “based on evidence from other countries the labour market benefits are judged to be most likely to materialise in case of sequential rather than simultaneous take-up of some of the leave by fathers”— in other words, allowing the mother to return to work if she so wishes while giving the father the chance to take sole responsibility for the care of their child while she is at work. The amendment leaves open whether the additional four weeks would be part of paternity or parental leave. Personally I prefer the latter as it is more likely to encourage sequential take-up by separating out the caregiving function of parental leave from the health and safety function of maternity/paternity leave. One of the very encouraging aspects of our debate in Committee was the dads’ army from around the House supporting a better deal for fathers. While the prospectus for the government review is very positive, I thought it could have gone further to include greater gender equality as one of its objectives, reflecting the clear messages from your Lordships’ House that a better deal for fathers would help fathers to be fathers and improve mothers’ labour market position. I was pleased to read that the Secretary of State, Jonathan Reynolds, told the Times: “I would like it to be culturally very much accepted, that as a new dad you would be wanting to spend some proper time at home. I think that would be really positive for society as well”. His reference to culture was important. Indeed, in the debate on the Statement, Minister Mather talked about the cultural shift that we need to see. It is important that the review looks at how the Government and others can encourage such a cultural shift. One of the lessons from the Nordic experience is that for changes in parental leave to have their full effect, there needs to be cultural change in the workplace, among employers in particular. I welcome the fact that the call for evidence states that the Government would like to test whether the objectives set for the review are the right ones. This suggests an admirable open-mindedness, and I hope therefore that the Government will be open to adding the objective of greater gender equality to the benefit of both women and men. There is a practical question about the review. We have heard that it will take 18 months followed by the publication of a set of findings and a road map, including the next steps of taking forward any potential reforms to implementation. It is not clear to me whether there will be further consultation on the proposals at this stage. Can my noble friend please clarify that? If there is to be a further round of consultation, when do the Government envisage any reforms finally being implemented? I hope it will be possible for the Government to make a practical commitment so that it will not be necessary for the noble Baroness to call a vote.