Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)

My Lords, I am grateful for the support across the Committee for these regulations. Again, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Wyld, who rightly paid tribute to the parents and campaigners; I absolutely echo that point. Without that pressure, which all Governments have received, these measures simply would not have come forward. We are very grateful for the campaigners and the parents behind all of this. The noble Baroness also mentioned cross-party working. Private Members’ Bills are often a good illustration of that; I know this from the ones I have been involved in. The noble Baroness, Lady Wyld, asked about the people who might be excluded. That is a good question and goes some way to answering the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe. We are just setting a minimum standard here, of course. This is a minimum standard, but we encourage employers to go above and beyond it. Many do so already and recognise the benefits that this brings to their businesses. We will keep this whole issue under review; the charities and campaigners will require that of us, I think, going back to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe. We will want to see how the rollout goes but this is a good start. As with many regulations, we want to embed this measure before we do any further evaluation of it. The noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, asked about making sure that we have a smooth implementation so that everybody knows what is going on. My officials are working with HMRC to develop and publish guidance on GOV.UK, which will explain the requirements of the legislation. In developing this guidance, we are undertaking user testing to ensure that it is fit for purpose. Ahead of implementation, my officials have been engaging with stakeholders—including employer groups, payroll providers, IT software developers and ACAS charities—and ensuring that we have posters in neonatal wards to advertise the benefits; I hope that that will make sure that the word spreads as widely as it possibly can. I am grateful to the noble Lord for talking about some of the other measures and family-friendly policies that the previous Government introduced. I was pleased to hear about those; I hope that it bodes well for the debates that we are going to have on the Employment Rights Bill when we come to it in due course. In the meantime, the provisions outlined in these SIs will provide for new parents with babies in neonatal care the ability to benefit from additional time off as a day 1 right. We should not lose sight of how important that is. Currently, many working families across the UK are having to return to work while their babies are sick and receiving care. As I said before, some mothers are also having to leave work because they are simply not ready to return to work. These measures aim to address some of the difficulties that thousands of parents face when their babies are in neonatal care or afterwards. They are a huge step forward. We hope that the change in the law will also send a signal of encouragement to employers about the significance of recognising the struggles that parents go through when their very young child is unwell and of the need to provide them with appropriate support in all ways—not just with leave and pay but in other forms of support as well. Of course, I acknowledge that many employers are already providing that support to parents, but there is more that they can do; we all have an education role to play in all of that, I think. In the meantime, I again thank noble Lords for all their comments.