WE would strongly advocate for a change to allow women to breastfeed in the House of Commons chamber, says Women’s Equality Party leader Sophie Walker, adding that the controversy around the debate shows again the need to put Parliament into ‘special measures’.
“It is ridiculous that in 2015, the taboo around breastfeeding persists,” says Sophie Walker. “Allowing breastfeeding in the Commons chamber would give female MPs with babies more flexibility to carry out their work – to advocate for those who have elected them as representatives.
“WE believe that the time has come to put Parliament into special measures – to introduce short-term quotas that would balance Parliament in just two elections and ensure that women’s voices are heard at the same volume as men’s when legislation is being considered.”
The Women’s Equality Party is campaigning for changes to the working practices of Parliament, the devolved assemblies and local councils, starting with family-friendly practices and working hours, electronic voting and formal parental leave.
It strongly backs MP Jess Phillips’ call to make Parliament more diverse and inclusive, including for new parents.
“WE would work hard to establish a more modern Parliament that would better represent the UK electorate, as set out in our policies on equal representation,” Ms Walker continued. “Politics needs to change to enable a wider group of people to participate.”
The benefits of breastfeeding, including protecting
babies from infections and diseases, building a maternal bond, and lowering mothers’ risk of breast and ovarian cancer are clearly laid out in NHS guidelines.
“It is therefore extremely disappointing that Simon Burns, himself a former health minister, opposes women’s right to breastfeed their babies at work – including in the House of Commons chamber,” says Ms Walker.
Notes to Editors:
The Women’s Equality Party is committed to equal representation in politics and throughout working life. Women currently make up a third of MPs and a quarter of Peers. WE will put Parliament into “special measures” for the next two elections to address this, undertaking the following:
- Women must make up at least two thirds of new MPs and three quarters of new Peers
- Political parties must use all-women shortlists for two out of three of selection contests for retiring MPs
- In Wales 60 percent of Assembly candidates should be women and in Scotland 65 percent of Scottish Parliament candidates should be women until parity is achieved.
The Women’s Equality Party was founded by Sandi Toksvig and Catherine Mayer in March 2015, and launched its policies on 20 October. Read the full policy document here.
Press enquiries to Catherine Riley, Communications and Partnerships Manager ([email protected]/+447764 752 731)
Showing 27 reactions
It impacts the health of the baby and the mother.
Parliament should be leading the country by example setting a gold standard for working conditions.
MP’s are voted in for a few years and constituents will be grateful for their representative to be working for as much of that as possible.
Being able to feed a baby in the house allows this.
Young Babies need feeding frequently and unpredictably. As they get older they need feeding less often and will be happy looked after by other carers. Once crawling, they are not going to be roaming the house, they will be elsewhere.
A young baby is happiest on its mother and will not cause a fuss. The MP will know her child and have judgement whether it will cause a disturbance or not.
If baby is in a sling, no one would even notice its presence. If anyone is uncomfortable seeing a baby being breastfed, it is because it has not been normalised for them. They will rapidly get used to it.
It is not comparable to an adult eating. We do not need to eat as frequently. It is not comparable to going to the toilet.
Well done WEP for taking on this issue. Frustratingly, breastfeeding always causes debate where it shouldn’t. How on earth have we decided that it is more appropriate for a mother to leave a baby with someone else because she can’t feed it in a special room?
Men cannot bring their kids into work to feed them, it’s a preference of some parents who wish to return to work whilst their baby is still being breast or bottle fed.
Parliament is a workplace. I can’t take my kids to work and neither can millions other women and men. Work is not a place for children not least because they require your full attention and you get employed to give your full attention to your job, so both can’t be achieved successfully.
If you go to work when you have kids then this is one of the costs of doing so. That’s what I and millions of other parents in the UK make a choice about when returning to work after having children.
You cannot expect employers to allow parents to bring their children to work for this purpose. Where would you draw the line? Some women breastfeed their kids until they are 3 or 4 years old, is it still ok to bring these kids into the workplace? This is a non issue and there are far more important matters that need to be addressed.
If we think about the equality aspect, equality means not just the same for men and women, but the same for all people and all jobs and activities that people might do. Could we allow breast or bottle feeding at work in all jobs? What if you are a police officer, nurse, firefighter, or thousands of other jobs where you couldn’t bring a child into that environment.
If we take this issue through to its possible conclusion. By pursuing this, you would create the ability for parents to feed their children in jobs where it is only practical to do so. I would suggest that the majority of these would be office based. Let’s assume that the majority of people who would be interested in this so called “modern” feature are women. Other jobs may become less attractive to them due to their inability to offer them this feature of their employment, creating the very inequalities in jobs that you purport to want to remove! Obviously this is an extreme example, but we must all think through the potential negative side effects as well as the positive.
Are there currently any laws or rules preventing MPs who are mothers from breastfeeding their infants in the chamber? Has any MP ever tried to breastfeed and been stopped? Has any MP who has an infant ever asked for breastfeeding to be allowed?
My suggestion is this: Yes we want equal representation for women in parliament, however, it seems more urgent to me that we press for a change in the hours that parliament sits, to make them more compatible with school hours – starting at 9am and finishing about 4pm. This would allow MPs, both mothers and fathers, to spend more time with their children of all ages. I think that would encourage more mothers to consider a political career and would also help our other objective of equal parenting. I suspect that the issue of MPs breastfeeding in the chamber applies to so few women at any given time, it would therefore be a distraction from our more achievable objectives. Once we have achieved equal representation, then the issue of breastfeeding in the chamber could be looked at again.
In the end the Commons should be there for everyone in all circumstances.
Adults eating and babies eating should not be treated the same, because it is not the same. And as I stated previously, there are many cultures where mothers are working all day with young babies and feed them when they need. It seems to be a particularly western societal construct that is forcing such an artificial separation between looking after children and babies and completing the daily work needed to get by. In the past, working class women would not be expected to sit at home with a baby, they would be back at work because they had no choice.
While the upper classes passed babies off to wet nurses and nannies for the most part as aristocratic women were not allowed to do much else but sit around all day whether they wanted to or not.
It seems pretty inhumane to make people choose between working or breastfeeding, when many parents don’t even get to have that choice as they have no option but to return to work in order to keep a roof over their head and bills paid. The health of children being such a hot topic at the moment as well.
Maybe having babies around would put a stop to some of the atrocious behaviour from the adults too. There was a great programme a while ago about an office that piloted the idea of having a crèche at their work and the results were extremely positive for everyone. A lot of the men also quite liked having the children around once they adjusted to it. What an amazing example to set to the rest of the country, if you could turn on to watch the House of Commons debating something and see Mothers and Fathers equally taking care of their babies and feeding the in public.
Also as any woman has the right to breastfeed wherever they are, how does the House get away with not allowing it?
While I doubt many people want to change a dirty nappy in the middle of the House of Commons, that is not at all the same as feeding your baby. It people find a breast being used for what they are for disturbing, they should leave, not the parent and baby.
Statutory Maternity Pay is an absolute joke, I breastfed both of my children until at least 4 months that would be weeks they and I missed out on if their dad hadn’t been able to support us.
I can’t wait to see question time with half the panel demonstrating what real life is like for those of us who work in the home and out and have children, no matter their age and level of dependence.