Name: Infants, Parents and Carers Bill
Uploaded: 2026-10-14T08:25:08+00:00
Duration: 4867 s

00:05 - 01:28

Speaker 2

Order. Infants, Parents and Carers Bill. Would everyone ensure that all electronic devices are turned off or switched to silent mode? We now begin line-by-line consideration of the bill. The selection list for today's sitting is available in the room and on the parliamentary website.

This shows how the clauses selected amendment have been grouped together for debate. There are two groups for debate on this bill, each of which is led by the question that a clause stand part of the bill. The member in charge, Sir Desmond Swayne, will be called to speak and his contribution will address the bill as a whole. I understand that he does not want to speak separately on the second part. Other members are then free to indicate they wish to speak in the current debate by bobbing.

At the end of the debate on each group, I will call Sir Desmond again. If any member has tabled an amendment during a particular group, they will need to indicate if they wish to withdraw the amendment or seek a decision. I hope the explanation is helpful. So we start with clause one and I call Sir Desmond Swayne.

01:28 - 04:24

Speaker 1

Dame Siobhain, it is always a pleasure and a privilege to address the chair, but particularly so when you are in it. With your permission, I will make one contribution but deal within that contribution separately with the groups. So coming first to clause one stand part. Clause one sets out the statutory powers available to the minister to secure services and functions with respect to pregnancy or childbirth, health and development needs of infants or the relationship between parent or carer and infant. Now, whilst there is an amendment within this group on clause two of the bill, clearly that amendment has implications for clause one.

And the substance of the amendment is that it should include the wellbeing of infants and parents and carers and prospective parents and carers and inequalities between infants, parents, carers and prospective parents and carers. And that is defined in the amendment by physical, mental, emotional health needs and in respect of infants' protection from harm and neglect. Now, my reading of the powers set out in clause one is clearly that that is inclusive of the wellbeing of infants and parents. Clearly, wellbeing of infant parents must fall within pregnancy or childbirth, the health and development needs of infants or the relationship between parents and carers.

So I'm confident that the amendment would be consistent with the powers being granted in clause one. I'm not so sure that inequalities comes within those three powers that are set out. And my fear would be that the amendment would leave ministers making an assessment which included health and wellbeing and inequalities, but no power to address the issue in statutory instruments in clause one on the issue of inequality. But it's a technical matter that I will defer to the minister on, but that's my take on it.

04:24 - 04:58

Speaker 4

I'm really grateful to the honorable member and I just wanted to bring greater clarity because if you are discussing the wellbeing of prospective parents or carers, that could be preconception as well, and I'm going to forward that argument within my contribution later. But in that case, there could be need for some technical amendment to the definition under clause one, subclause two.

04:58 - 07:21

Speaker 1

Well, that's a fair point, but undoubtedly that is a matter for debate. The regulatory powers are set out to be made as by statutory instrument under the affirmative procedure. So we now come to clause two. Clause two sets out the requirement for an assessment and a consultation of sorts within that assessment, to which the amendment now would add explicitly the need for health and wellbeing and for inequalities to be included. Now, I believe that the assessment of need implicitly includes those things, as they should.

These are important matters and therefore should be included. But my argument would be that implicitly it's already there. However, it is important that the minister, when making her assessment, should look beyond demand to how babies and families are faring, especially those that are at risk of doing poorly. And so I can entirely understand the desire to make explicit on the face of the bill that which is implicit within it. After all, if I argue that the bill is doing this anyway, what danger is there of adding an explicit requirement, belt and braces?

The difficulty as I see it is that it opens us up to the danger of a report stage where other things that are implicit in the bill would seek to be added explicitly. And I have received a whole number of suggested amendments from organizations representing different aspects of childcare and infancy and pregnancy, stating things that could be added explicitly to the face of the bill, which I believe are clearly implicit in the powers that we're giving to ministers.