Sorry Stella, bringing babies to the Commons simply doesn’t work

When my first baby was just a few weeks old, I introduced her not to the office but the next best thing, the bar, which had become a sort of second workplace. Those were the days when lunch was a structured part of office life and, in my profession at least, mostly liquid. So, strapped into her harness, my infant daughter made her debut in EV2 (El Vino’s in Blackfriars, the Fleet Street institution being EV1), where her mother had passed many happy hours pre-baby.

“What took her so long?” said one former colleague as we propped her up on the bar. Generally, the welcome was rapturous. Even the staff seemed content to accommodate both mother and baby in what was, and is, a business watering hole with no obvious attractions for children.

We visited again, the babe and me, and for a brief while, I believed that motherhood and the trappings of my working world could co-exist with little adjustment. But it was not to last. 

One day she had enough and began to bawl. Patrons complained, and the manager had no option but to fling us out. “Bring her back when she’s 1,” he said, not unreasonably.

I’ve thought about this a lot since Stella Creasy, the Labour MP for Walthamstow, was told off for carting her three-month-old boy along to a Commons debate.

Pip was quiet on the day, according to his mother. But his presence broke the rules, which state that MPs must not take their seat in the chamber when accompanied by their child. 

Creasy, who brought her first baby into the Commons, was outraged and has demanded a review so “parenting and politics can mix”.

“Mothers in the mother of all parliaments are not to be seen or heard it seems,” she said. “I have two children and I’ve taken them both previously into the chamber, as needs must, to make sure my constituents have representation.”

As a stunt, the incongruous sight of a baby amid the throng of tribunes successfully highlighted the problems mothers face in juggling their responsibilities. 

Several members were supportive, from the Prime Minister, whose spokesman said: “We very much want to see further improvements” made by Parliament for new parents, to the Deputy Prime Minister, Dominic Raab, who said he sympathised with Creasy and would not be distracted at the despatch box by a baby.

The Commons Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, said that while the House had to function “professionally and without disturbance,” sometimes discretion could be exercised. But later, he revealed he had been “heavily lobbied” by other women in the Commons, telling him not to give in to Creasy. 

It’s not surprising that the MP’s female workmates were less squeamish about calling out what is, in reality, a ridiculous request because they will understand, more than men, that nearly all work situations are incompatible with minding a baby.

Imagine the precedent-setting chaos, not necessarily in the Commons – where most MPs are past child-bearing age, or men or both – but in other work environments.

In schools, with their predominantly female, often young workforce; in hospitals – nurses, and doctors, tending to patients and their own babies simultaneously; in supermarkets – babies plonked down in the aisles perhaps; and in newsrooms and television studios – Sky presenter Sophie Ridge, for example, back early from maternity leave, with a baby bouncing on her knee, to quiz the PM.

Stella Creasy is lucky that her boy is “as good as gold” and that she does not have to put in 12-hour or overnight shifts in the Commons. And she is lucky that as an MP, she has a creche at work, plus six months’ maternity leave on full pay, above the statutory rate. 

She also earns a generous salary which puts her in a better position than most young mothers to afford childcare.

Of course, there is no ideal solution to combining motherhood with a job, and many women will thank the MP for continuing to bang this drum on their behalf. 

But by asking for the impossible, she does the cause no favours. At some point, women must make a choice, out of necessity in most cases, so it’s not much of a choice.

Maternity pay provides precious time away from work in the early months, and then mothers either return to their jobs, having organised childcare or, if circumstances allow, opt to stay at home.

There are women – Helena Morrissey, city supremo and mother of nine, springs to mind – who neither take their full maternity leave nor bring their babies to the office. Morrissey said that by the time her youngest was born, she was only off for 11 weeks.

She was lucky to have a husband at home to look after her brood, and she has long argued that businesses need to adapt to a more female way of doing things. But that doesn’t extend to babies in the boardroom.

For many women, work offers an escape from child-rearing, a place where they are their professional selves, to be treated no differently from their male counterparts. 

How can women ever strive to be equals if they are left holding the baby?