So I wrote to Lynne Featherstone, my MP, previously the government’s equalities minister.
I said I had been concerned that the recent conversations about flexible parental leave had made no mention of breastfeeding. Perhaps a mother returning to work two weeks after birth might need a teeny weeny bit of help if she was going to make breastfeeding work – and follow the government’s own recommendation to breastfeed exclusively for 6 months? The NHS website states: “Exclusive breastfeeding (with no other food or drink) is recommended for around the first six months of a baby's life. After this, breastfeed alongside other foods for as long as you and your baby wish. This might be into their second year or beyond”.
Lynne Featherstone appreciated that breastfeeding was an important area and wrote to Nick Clegg to ask more about the government’s commitment to this issue.
Here is the government’s reply.
“Dear Lynne
Thank you for your letter of 15 November to Nick Clegg concerning breastfeeding and flexible parental leave. I am replying as this matter falls within my portfolio.
The Government encourages breastfeeding and recommends employers enable women to breastfeed as a matter of best practice. There are no plans to introduce a specific entitlement for women to take time off work to breastfeed or express milk. This is due in part to our concern about setting a time limit on the periods of time mothers will need off work, as the frequency and length of time a woman needs to breastfeed or express milk is very individual. It will depend on how easy the mother finds breastfeeding/ expressing, how many feeds there are during the time she is not with her baby and how much milk her baby normally needs to take.
Many employers already recognise the benefits that allowing their staff to take the time they need to breastfeed or express milk, brings to their business as well as to their employees, in terms of reduced absence due to child sickness; breastfed babies are generally healthier; increased staff morale and loyalty, and a subsequent higher rate of return to work; lower recruitment and training costs and an extra incentive to offer potential employees. The Government welcomes this, but believes that time off work relating to breastfeeding is a matter best left for employers and their employees to agree between themselves. Alongside the planned reforms we will continue to work with employers to highlight the business benefits of supporting breastfeeding; and promote best practice.
Under the planned flexible parental leave system, new mothers will continue to have the right to the same amount of leave and pay to which they are currently entitled.
This means that new mothers can take time off work to prepare for and recover from childbirth, to establish breastfeeding, and to remain at home to breastfeed their baby throughout the Department of Health’s recommended period of 6 months.
The decision to remain at home does not affect the parents’ right to flexible parental leave as the option will exist for the father to take leave concurrently or subsequent with the mother’s maternity or flexible leave period.
Whilst there is no specific right to time off for breastfeeding, women who return to work whilst nursing will continue to:
· Be protected under the Workplace (Healthcare, Safety and Welfare) Regulations which require employers to provide breastfeeding women with a place to rest; and where there is any risk to the health and safety of the mother or baby, the Management of health and safety at Work Regulations 1999 and the Employment Rights Act 1996, provide that employers must take reasonable steps to avoid the risk. This can include changes to the mothers working hours or conditions.
· Have the right to request flexible working to support them in adjusting their working pattern to accommodate time for breastfeeding and/ or expressing milk.
· Have the right to unpaid parental leave to support them in extending the period of time they are able to dedicate to breastfeeding their baby.
In the meantime, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) advises employers that it is good practice to provide a private, healthy and safe environment for nursing mothers to express and store their milk and publishes comprehensive guidance on how employers can meet their legal requirements: www.hse.gov.uk/mothers
I would like to thank you for bringing this matter to my attention.
Jo Swinson MP
Shall we unpick this letter?
Dear Lynne,
Thank you for your letter of 15 November to Nick Clegg concerning breastfeeding and flexible parental leave. I am replying as this matter falls within my portfolio.
The Government encourages breastfeeding and recommends employers enable women to breastfeed as a matter of best practice. There are no plans to introduce a specific entitlement for women to take time off work to breastfeed or express milk. This is due in part to our concern about setting a time limit on the periods of time mothers will need off work, as the frequency and length of time a woman needs to breastfeed or express milk is very individual. It will depend on how easy the mother finds breastfeeding/ expressing, how many feeds there are during the time she is not with her baby and how much milk her baby normally needs to take.
[How many breastfeeding women do you think have been surveyed to arrive at this opinion?
Do you think the government is aware that a breastfeeding baby takes about the same amount of milk at 6 weeks as they do at 6 months and there is remarkably little variation?
Do you think the government knows that the vast majority of women pump about 90% of available milk in the first 10 minutes of pumping?
And with a double electric breastpump, this may mean that a mother of a 3 month old baby need only spent 30 minutes pumping during a working day of 8 hours?
Talk to mothers of 3 month old babies, 5 month old babies, 8 month old babies – you’ll find that the ‘very individual’ requirements are actually pretty boringly not that individual, pretty easy to work out and that the MAXIMUM a mother may require is really not so burdensome and using that as a guideline does not result in the crumbling of an economy]
Many employers already recognise the benefits that allowing their staff to take the time they need to breastfeed or express milk, brings to their business as well as to their employees, in terms of reduced absence due to child sickness; breastfed babies are generally healthier; increased staff morale and loyalty, and a subsequent higher rate of return to work; lower recruitment and training costs and an extra incentive to offer potential employees. The Government welcomes this, but believes that time off work relating to breastfeeding is a matter best left for employers and their employees to agree between themselves.
[Which makes it sound delightfully like we all sit around a table, share a flagon of ale and come up with agreements that make everyone feel warm and fluffy. Would you like to meet the mother of an 8 month old baby who was told by her employer he was not willing to provide ANY time for expressing?]
Alongside the planned reforms we will continue to work with employers to highlight the business benefits of supporting breastfeeding; and promote best practice.
[If an employer employs a disabled person he has to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ to accommodate that person in the workplace. This might include a change to working hours or providing a special piece of equipment. But it’s apparently burdensome and unthinkable to imagine an employer might make reasonable adjustments for weeks or months to allow a baby to continue to have access to breastmilk. A room, a fridge, ten minutes here and there. Really too hard? We don’t even need the fridge.]
Under the planned flexible parental leave system, new mothers will continue to have the right to the same amount of leave and pay to which they are currently entitled.
This means that new mothers can take time off work to prepare for and recover from childbirth, to establish breastfeeding, and to remain at home to breastfeed their baby throughout the Department of Health’s recommended period of 6 months.
[Hang on now, dear Government. So do you WANT mothers to stay home for 6 months? Do you want babies to receive exclusive breastmilk for 6 months and to continue to breastfeed alongside solids after that, or not? Or do you want mother to return to work as quickly as can be conceived – perhaps only 2 weeks after giving birth – and return to a workplace with ‘no specific right’ to breastfeed or express (your words)?
Are we saying that breastfeeding for 6 months is a luxury some women might choose to indulge and if you want or need to return to work, hard luck?
And don’t think I haven’t noticed that a government minister appears to have misunderstood the government’s recommendations on breastfeeding and has confused the ‘exclusive breastfeeding for 6 months’ with a recommendation to ‘breastfeed for 6 months’. I noticed.]
The decision to remain at home does not affect the parents’ right to flexible parental leave as the option will exist for the father to take leave concurrently or subsequent with the mother’s maternity or flexible leave period.
Whilst there is no specific right to time off for breastfeeding [Nope, no specific right for the mother NOR the baby. Have we read the United Nations Rights of the Child Article 4: “You have a right to special care and protection and to good food, housing and medical service”?], women who return to work whilst nursing will continue to:
• Be protected under the Workplace (Healthcare, Safety and Welfare) Regulations which require employers to provide breastfeeding women with a place to rest; and where there is any risk to the health and safety of the mother or baby, the Management of health and safety at Work Regulations 1999 and the Employment Rights Act 1996, provide that employers must take reasonable steps to avoid the risk. This can include changes to the mothers working hours or conditions.
[So let’s get this straight, the breastfeeding mother has a legal right to ‘rest’?
Would you mind awfully if she take along her breast pump while she ‘rests’ and pops something in a mini-fridge after she’s ‘rested’.
But oh, hang on, people can get tired in very different ways? Getting tired is a very individual thing. That’s surely very hard to legislate when it’s all so individual but yet that one seems to have made it into law.
Can we just declare now that the mention of ‘rest’ for the breastfeeding woman is one many of us could write essays about. It was a concept from a different world – a world before the electric breast pumps of today and the modern working practices of modern women. CAN WE SWAP IT FOR SOMETHING ELSE PLEASE?]
• Have the right to request flexible working to support them in adjusting their working pattern to accommodate time for breastfeeding and/ or expressing milk. [Have the right… also have the right to go to our employer and ask for a special day when everyone dresses up as Spiderman. Doesn’t mean the request will be granted.]
• Have the right to unpaid parental leave to support them in extending the period of time they are able to dedicate to breastfeeding their baby.
In the meantime, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) advises employers that it is good practice to provide a private, healthy and safe environment for nursing mothers to express and store their milk and publishes comprehensive guidance on how employers can meet their legal requirements: www.hse.gov.uk/mothers [comprehensive guidance on how to provide a place and time for ‘rest’ – these women may even need to lie down. And “You may provide a private, healthy and safe environment for employees to express and store milk, although there is no legal requirement for you to do so”. So guidance on how employers can meet their legal requirements won’t take long then, hey?]
I would like to thank you for bringing this matter to my attention. [Thanks Jo, Hope you don’t mind if we come back to you on a few things. Here’s one thing: employers have to keep mother and their babies safe. The guidance says ‘There may be risks, other than those associated with pregnancy, to consider if an employee is still breastfeeding on their return to work. These will depend on her working conditions but could include:
working with organic mercury
working with radioactive material
exposure to lead
This list is not exhaustive (see EC guidance for further information). You will need to consider any other risks that could cause harm to the mother or child’s health and safety, for as long as she wishes to continue to breastfeed’.
You do realise, don’t you, that a mother denied the right to breastfeed is at greater risk of blocked ducts, mastitis and possibly breast abscesses? That’s even the ones who aren’t working with organic mercury. That’s all breastfeeding mums. And that a baby whose mother ends breastfeeding early will be at greater risk of health problems? So how about we make it a legal requirement that an employer makes ‘reasonable adjustments’ to accommodate breastfeeding women?
We don’t want a legal right to ‘rest’ and lie down. We want a legal right to give our babies breastmilk if we return to work. I promise nothing will crumble. It’s not scary and it’s not hard. Let’s just focus on that word ‘reasonable’.]
Jo Swinson MP