Hansard

I warmly welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate. I thank Alison Johnstone for lodging the motion for a members’ business debate.

As a father of three young children, I recognise the supreme importance of parents being close to their children at birth and during the earliest stages of their development. I for one will never forget that moment of a child being born, with that heady mix of emotions: relief, elation, joy and exhaustion—even as a bystander.

For many parents, the days and weeks afterwards are exciting and daunting times, involving ensuring that their newborn receives round-the-clock care. We have been very lucky. All our children were born at term, and they were born healthy. I was able to hold my children and to give them that physical contact that Kenneth Gibson spoke about.

For some babies, sadly, much more support is required. Babies born with a severe or minor disability—and in this instance babies born prematurely—of course require extra attention, not just from their parents but also from clinical specialists. Frequently, they require intensive hospital care.

According to figures from Bliss Scotland, about 5,800 babies are born in Scotland every year who require specialist neonatal care. Almost half of that number are born prematurely. Depending on the time of birth, neonatal care can last anywhere between four and 93 days. It is therefore vital that our NHS has the facilities and staff who are able to ensure that babies requiring additional neonatal care receive the best possible treatment.

We are incredibly fortunate to live not only in a country where parental leave is supported but in a country that affords both parents the opportunity to take a period of leave from work so that they can care for their new offspring. For many years it was only the mother who was entitled to a full period of maternity leave, but the UK Government introduced the shared parental leave law, which allows parents the opportunity to share leave over a 50-week period. Moreover, if a child is born prematurely, statutory maternity leave commences the day after the child is born.

We are also fortunate to live in a country where leave is supported financially. Working parents are able to receive 90 per cent of average weekly earnings before tax for the first six weeks and thereafter either approximately £140 per week or 90 per cent of average weekly earnings. I fundamentally believe that those things are the sign of a country, a government and a society that support parents when they need it most.

Parental leave is of course a matter reserved to the UK Government, but we on these benches will do our utmost to ensure that the terms of the motion and the sentiments expressed in the chamber today reach the relevant people in Westminster.

Although the motion concentrates on parental leave, it is worth recalling that there is also an issue around funding the right neonatal and maternity services in our NHS. Much can be done. For example, in England, funding has been invested to improve facilities in maternity and neonatal care units across the country, creating projects that allow parent accommodation to be built, with bedrooms, kitchens, en suite facilities and so on, all designed to improve the environment for the parents and families of children receiving vital neonatal care.

I recognise that maternity staff in NHS Scotland do an incredible job in supporting babies and their families and I commend charities such as Bliss for all the work that they do in this area. However, let us ensure that our NHS here in Scotland receives adequate funding, that it has the staff to cope with increasing demand, that parents can access maternity services as close to home as possible and that our NHS hospitals have the necessary equipment to care for children who require specialist care at birth.

I hope that all the speeches in this debate will feed into the overall debate about how we support parents and babies. In that vein, I eagerly anticipate the Scottish Government’s review of maternity and neonatal services so that we can plan how we will deliver this kind of care in the years ahead.