Ashley Dalton

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Furniss. Before I begin, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Clapham and Brixton Hill (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) for securing this important debate during Black Maternal Health Awareness Week. It is so important that we raise awareness of the disproportionate challenges faced by black mothers during pregnancy and after childbirth; debates in weeks such as this are critical to that. I want to pay tribute to the charities that do so much vital work in this space: the Motherhood Group, Five X More, Black Mums Upfront, which is part of Bliss, and Ebony Bonds, to name just a few. I am taking this debate on behalf of the Minister for women’s health and patient safety, Baroness Merron. I also want to thank all hon. Members for their contributions to this debate. I will seek to pick up and answer all their queries, but if they feel I have not done so by the end of the debate, I ask them to please get in touch and I can ensure we respond. I want to thank the charity Sands for shining a spotlight on some of the most heartbreaking cases of baby loss in the UK, and for giving a voice to so many black and Asian women who have gone through the nightmare of losing a child. One such case was Amber Lincoln from Woolwich in south-east London. She was miscategorised as low risk when she was pregnant, and nearly died from undetected complications after her delivery. A series of individual and systemic failings led to cancellations and delays, and her twins, Anaya and Mael, were born and died at 22 weeks in November 2022, before she could access the care she needed. Amber said: “If the NHS just listened to me. And just put my appointment through when I was constantly asking. If they had the notes there properly I wouldn't have been treated that way.” She said the fact she was mixed race led midwives to focus on diabetes and high blood pressure rather than other high-risk indicators. I wish I could stand here and say that Amber was an isolated case, but her story will sound familiar to black women up and down the country, and it shows in the figures. The latest data from MBRRACE-UK shows maternal mortality rates for women from black ethnic backgrounds are more than double those for white women. Black women and their babies are also at higher risk of stillbirth, neonatal death and miscarriage. That should shame us in modern Britain. Tackling inequalities and racism in maternity services is an absolute priority for this Government. Our manifesto committed to setting an explicit target to close the black and Asian maternal mortality gaps. That commitment has not wavered—we are working hard not only to set a target but to set the actions that will help deliver it. It is crucial we set the right targets and ensure the system is supported to achieve them, which is why the Government are currently considering the action needed that would drive change on the ground, ensuring that targets set are evidence-based, and women and baby-centred. Our ambition is not just to improve maternal outcomes; we want to improve black women’s experiences of maternity care too. We know that too often black women are not listened to and experience racism and bias. That is completely unacceptable. Importantly, our ambition must also extend beyond maternity services, so that we can tackle wider health inequalities, including the determinants of ill health. I know that health inequalities do not start at the door of maternity services, and nor do they end when women go home. Here is what we are doing and where we need to go further. We are aware of calls for a national inquiry into maternity care, which we will carefully consider. There have been a number of reviews, inquiries and wider research in recent years that have provided a shared and clear sense of the issues in maternity and neonatal care. The most important priority must remain for us to target resources and efforts to address the existing issues identified and avoid any further delays. The focus must be to address inequalities and the action taken to do so for women and babies. NHS England is now in the final year of delivering its three-year plan to improve maternity and neonatal services. Central to the plan is the objective to reduce inequalities for all in maternity access, experience and outcomes, and taking steps to tackle and address inequalities for black women. To achieve this objective, all local areas now have in place and are implementing their equity and equality action plans. Those plans detail local interventions tailored to population needs, in order to tackle inequalities for women and babies from ethnic minorities and those living in the most deprived areas. There have been some great examples of local best practice within those plans, ranging from targeted pre-conception health support to tailored support to ensure equitable access to care, and bespoke communications for pregnant asylum seekers and refugees. As part of the three-year delivery plan, all local areas are working to implement version three of the Saving Babies’ Lives care bundle, which provides maternity units with guidance and interventions to reduce and tackle the inequalities in stillbirths, neonatal deaths, brain injuries and pre-term births. Those local and national interventions are essential steps to improving equity and equality in maternity care. In parallel, however, it is vital that we continue to work to foster a culture of safety, compassion, honesty and one that is actively anti-racist, which must be led by outstanding leadership. I am pleased that all 150 maternity and neonatal units in England have signed up to the perinatal culture and leadership programme. For clarity, and I think particularly for the shadow Minister, we recognise that racism and unconscious bias need to be tackled, that they are unacceptable and must be tackled in the NHS.