Maya Ellis

I completely agree with my hon. Friend; she is right that both men and women want this. Everyone in society is demanding this, and I really hope that the Government will listen and take action. An even more critical point is that it is not just men and women but children who will benefit from this. Ten to Men found that a loving paternal relationship was the single biggest factor in preventing a boy becoming a man who abuses his partner. The macro win of all of this is higher labour supply and reduced gender gaps, the fiscal win is higher tax receipts and lower benefit dependency, and the household win is healthier relationships and more resilient income. Imagine the benefits if a dad or a partner could build a bond and confidence with their baby, so that understanding is deepened between parents, bonds are built to strengthen the determination to care for the baby, and a society is developed where protecting your family bubble becomes the pride point. I will be frank: I truly hope that this Labour Government and the most progressive and gender-balanced Parliament ever will catch us up by committing to six weeks of protected paternity leave at 90% of pay, paid for by Government, and do it soon. If we do not take the single biggest step we can closer to equality, I do not know what we are here for. The fact that radicalised me more than any other, and that tells me that we are still early on in the journey to equal and healthy relationships, is that before 1991 it was still legal to rape your wife. Anyone who got married before 1991 did so knowing that fact. We are only 35 years into a world that expects men and women to be equal in a marriage, and we are only beginning to work out what that means for us as a society. One of the biggest hills we have to climb is helping men and boys find newly empowered roles in equal relationships, in the same way that women and girls have been doing. Many colleagues in this place are doing important work on building role models and positive education for boys, and the Government’s own violence against women and girls strategy includes teacher training to spot the early signs of misogyny in boys. I truly welcome the plans for improved relationships education in schools that the Government are introducing this year, particularly plans to start this earlier in primary schools and to focus on how to develop healthy relationships. None the less, we must remain alive to how early we subconsciously introduce power disparities. As part of preparing for this debate, our friends at the Dad Shift challenged us to remember couples we admire for their equality, because role models are critical. The couple I admire most is Tom and Barbara Good from “The Good Life”. Amazingly, I only discovered the 1970s show recently and was slightly taken aback by how good they are to each other, in a way that makes me feel we have in some ways regressed from these days.