Breaking the Taboo by Theo Clarke

Author:Theo Clarke
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Biteback Publishing
Published: 2025-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

One day, my colleague Darren Henry came to see me to discuss a case he’d come across in a surgery appointment, which concerned the awful story of his constituent losing their partner during childbirth. I nearly cried hearing the story of a new dad being left with a tiny baby when the mother had sadly died. Darren explained that shared parental leave and pay was not applicable in the unusual scenario of the death of one of the parents and as a result, the father couldn’t take the full amount of parental leave that otherwise would have been available even though he was now the sole parent. He wanted to present a ten-minute rule bill, ‘Shared Parental Leave and Pay (Bereavement)’, to make a small change to the law. The Labour MP Chris Elmore had also presented a private members’ bill on the same topic and he asked if I would support them both. I immediately agreed to try to amend the law on shared parental leave for those facing such a life-altering set of circumstances. It didn’t seem right that his constituent did not qualify for parental leave after the agonising situation of losing his partner and having to raise their child alone. It was also good to see MPs from different political parties supporting the issue. It was clear to me that to get anything done in Parliament, it was hugely helpful to have cross-party consensus, and I was proud to support the bill and help to make changes on this important issue.

It was this experience that crystallised in my mind the fact that, despite being only backbenchers, we could make small, meaningful changes that could genuinely impact people’s lives if we focused on what we tried to do. It was time to do something bigger with our all-party parliamentary group. My idea now fully formed, I floated the idea of running a birth trauma inquiry in the UK to the APPG and proposed to Rosie that she could co-chair it with me. I was delighted when she agreed, but she also flagged the huge amount of work that undertaking an inquiry would mean. So, we also met with Kim to discuss how the Birth Trauma Association could potentially provide support and began to make a list of other birth-related charities and experts to involve early on.

Normally, an inquiry of this size would be run by clerks if it was undertaken by a select committee in Parliament. We had no such resources, so instead we convened a group of stakeholders to be a special advisory group, led by the BTA as our secretariat, and asked them to suggest ideas for evidence sessions, key people to be witnesses and draft terms of reference for the inquiry. These meetings were invaluable in allowing different groups either involved with maternity campaigning or delivering frontline services to have input into the inquiry and ensure it was comprehensive and wide ranging. We wanted to hear from as many people as possible so we decided to launch a public call for evidence in the new year.

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