Ms Stella Creasy

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Telford (Shaun Davies) on securing this long-overdue debate. Previous debates have had a minimal turnout, so it is fantastic to see so many people here. I also pay tribute to the Dad Shift and the original campaigners Pregnant Then Screwed and Joeli Brearley. Joeli Brearley came up with the pancake test: if we consistently put mums and dads in two different boxes, with mums looking after babies and dads having to go back to work after those first two weeks, when you have just realised that the meconium will eventually stop, it is mums who learn how to feed the child pancakes and dads who do not. It is mums who will get why some days the child wants pancakes rolled up, some days they want them flat and some days they want them with cream. That everyday caring for children is at the heart of being able to look after them, and slowly but surely it ends up being easier for the mum to take the child and to deal with the toddler, and dads get further and further away. That is why, in the minute I have left, I want to argue in front of the Minister for PaPa—protected and paid leave—which we need for mums and dads in every single relationship. There is a risk that the Employment Rights Bill and the brilliant changes it introduces could entrench the challenges we are discussing, rather than helping us to resolve them. What do I mean by that? I mean that, if we entrench the idea that shared parental leave is the answer to the challenge, we are entrenching one of the biggest crimes against relationships. As the data shows us time and again, it is mums who end up having to look after children and mums who end up having to take that link. That is why in this country there is a motherhood penalty, which means that mums are seen as less committed, less capable, less competent and less worthy of promotion.