Debate contribution: Deaths, Still-Births and Baby Loss Bill: Second Stage

Debate contribution by Mr Mark Durkan on 7 April 2025.

MLA

Mr Mark Durkan

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

7 April 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Deaths, Still-Births and Baby Loss Bill: Second Stage

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4890426

Read the official Assembly record

Text

On behalf of the SDLP, I support the Bill on an issue about which I am passionate, and on which I have been persistent. We thank the Minister for bringing forward the Bill. I also give recognition to the former Minister of Finance who laid much of the groundwork for it. Reform of the processes through which we manage the issuing of death certificates is long overdue. It is an issue that was communicated to the Assembly by affected families a long time ago, and it is an issue in which there has been broad consensus across the Assembly. I believe that we will see that here again today. It is fair to say that there has been a hugely positive public response to the news that this important piece of work, which will mean so much to so many, will be legislated on. The mere recognition of the loss of the life that they never got to share will mean the world to the many grieving parents whom I have spoken to. I will speak to the provisions in the Bill surrounding baby loss certificates, and then proceed to some of the issues relating to the improvement to death and stillbirth registration. Those of us who have had a child will know that, from the moment that you get the first positive test or see the first sonogram, your entire future changes. It is a frightening and exciting frenzy as parents immediately begin to start thinking about their baby, try to decide names and think about cribs, nappies and onesies. Will it be a boy? Will it be a girl? What will its first words be? What school might they attend? What great things might they accomplish? Will they have my eyes? Will they have my smile? Will they have my hair?

It is an unusual kind of grief to have that future — that life that you could have had — taken from you, to mourn not just what you have lost but everything that you were meant to have and to know that the baby that you were so excited to hold in your arms will be out of your reach forever. What makes it worse is that that is a pain that women and their partners must often face alone. We have no way of knowing how many pregnancies end in miscarriage each year, but the most common estimate that we hear and use is that as many as one in four pregnancies could end in a miscarriage. That means that it is a sorrow that a huge section of society has endured and does endure. However, if you were to ask people across our country, "Do you know a woman who has had a miscarriage?", a significant number of people will say, "No", and fewer still might be able to say that they know a man who has lost a baby in that way.

As a society, we do not encourage people to talk about it or share our guilt. How many of us were told to keep a pregnancy secret for the first trimester just in case something went wrong and that, in that case, it would be better if no one knew? I understand that instinct entirely, but I know that it means that women are made to feel as though it is something to keep secret and to be ashamed of. It is often not until years later that women and men feel comfortable sharing their experience, and others never share it at all.

At his trial, Oscar Wilde spoke of:

"The Love that dare not speak its name".

Baby loss is like the grief that dare not speak its name. The Bill will not solve that — no legislation can. However, it is our sincere hope that the Bill, by creating the option of a baby loss certificate, will allow those going through a miscarriage to have some way to mark their pain; to acknowledge the loss that they have suffered; and to maybe have some degree of closure and catharsis. It is also our hope that the creation of the baby loss certificate scheme will encourage more couples to share their experience of miscarriage. The mere existence of the scheme will allow us to gather more data on the scale of the problem. That, I hope, will help further to destigmatise baby loss; show those who are going through a miscarriage that they are not alone; encourage them to tell their loved ones what happened and get the emotional support that they need; and facilitate us, as a society, to have a wider conversation about baby loss and rethink our attitudes towards it. While we wholeheartedly support the Bill and the intention behind it, one or two matters warrant further exploration at Consideration Stage. In particular, if we look at clause 11(3)(e), we see that it empowers the Department of Finance to set fees for baby loss certificates. I would be grateful if the Minister could set out his intentions on that more clearly. Does he intend that access to a baby loss certificate will be free, as is the case across the UK, or is it the Department's intention to issue a fee in order for someone to access the scheme? If it is the latter, that would be a mistake. I understand the financial pressure that the Executive and every Department are under, and I am confident that any Minister's sole intention in attaching a fee would be to cover the projected costs of running such a sensitive scheme. However, while I do not and never would doubt the Minister's good intentions, any step to charge a fee for issuing a baby loss certificate risks being perceived as callous and may even compound grief. Neither England nor Scotland has felt the need to request any fee to access the service, and, if they can deliver that in a financially sustainable way, I see no reason why we cannot. In the Budget sustainability plan, we have recently seen that even the smallest charge can be tied into a Department's budget. We saw hospital car parking charges and charges for Ordnance Survey maps tied into Departments' financial plans. Having a fee for baby loss certificates creates the option, no matter how repugnant I and, I am sure, everyone here would find it, for baby loss certificate fees to be seen in the future as a source of revenue. Beginning the scheme with a fee will make it much more difficult to remove it later. Once the Department begins receiving that fee money, it will inevitably play a role in its internal budgeting processes. Making the scheme free from the beginning will prevent that. I turn now to the remaining reforms, which are common sense. Despite our differences in and around the Chamber, I am sure that we have all had a bereavement in our family. We all know the pain and grief of losing someone and the way in which lives get turned upside down and families get thrown apart. One element that does not always get spoken about, however, is that it is also a hectic and busy time. From the moment that someone dies, at a time when people are emotionally distraught, they need to begin the process of registering the death, organising and planning a funeral, paying for it and notifying relevant Departments. Following their sad passing, people may have a week to clean out a loved one's home, after which they have to value the estate and enter into a legal process around a will. That is before they even begin to look after themselves and their family, review their own needs and see what bereavement support they and others might need to access. If the deceased had next of kin or dependants, they may need to decide what support they need or see what changes they need to make to their taxes and benefits. In extreme cases, they may need to review their own immigration status. It is an overwhelming labyrinth of forms and bureaucracy that can often feel callous, given everything else that the bereaved and their family are going through. While much of that work, painful as it may be, is needed, it is a simple point of compassion to ease the burden if and when we can. The pandemic was a brutal test for Governments, businesses and families around the world. In the midst of the shutdowns, innovative solutions had to be found to manage almost every aspect of our lives from shopping to working to socialising with friends and family. I am sure that I am not alone in being relieved that those dark and challenging times are done. It would, however, be remiss of us not to learn from elements of those solutions and ask whether they improved matters, and the Bill is one such example. For example, steps that we took during the pandemic included allowing people to give details of a death or stillbirth over the phone or digitally rather than attend in person; providing the option to share the relevant documents technologically by allowing electronic signatures for death certificates; and enabling medical professionals to transfer death or stillbirth forms. All proved not only to be common sense but to make the entire process of the registration of deaths and stillbirths more expedient and a wee bit less distressing for the families involved. I am pleased that the Bill removes the restrictions on the right of a lesbian couple to the same rights as a heterosexual couple when registering a birth, stillbirth or baby loss. The fact that there is no provision, as there is for heterosexual couples, for the same-sex partner of a pregnant woman to register the birth of a child is just absurd. It is a relic from a darker time when the Government felt it appropriate to value one form of love or relationship over another and consider only a rigid, exclusive definition of "family". Not to allow the same-sex partner of a new mother to register a birth is to deny them their status as a parent. To say that because there is perhaps no biological connection between the child and them is to say that the woman who will feed, clothe and sit and do homework with that child is not a mother and not an equal partner in raising that child. What is more sinister and, frankly, cruel is that a unmarried same-sex partner cannot register a stillbirth. Most of us can only imagine how painful and upsetting it must be for a woman to suffer a stillbirth. In that scenario, it is only natural and human that her partner may want to take as much burden off her shoulders as she can while she physically and emotionally recovers. We understand and accept that with heterosexual couples, married or not. To deny that to same-sex couples is senseless and heartless. That is not, however, the only area of the registration process in which lesbian couples continue to face barriers and discrimination. On 17 September last year, my office reached out to the then Minister of Finance to raise an issue about the registration of same-sex couples who have had a child through IVF. Under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008, if a same-sex couple conceive a child through IVF in Northern Ireland, both mothers are automatically registered as parents. If, however, the IVF treatment is administered abroad, which is common, as many fertility clinics often have an international sister clinic, both parents are unable to be registered on the birth certificate. Given that obvious gap in the legislation, I am interested to hear the Minister's opinion on whether he feels that that falls within the remit of the Bill. If so, does it not make sense to fix that anomaly now, rather than having to return to the matter in follow-up legislation? The SDLP is more than happy to work with the Minister on a friendly amendment to include that among the reforms set out in the Bill or even to support a departmental amendment. We welcome the Second Stage of this important legislation and look forward to playing a constructive role as it passes through the Assembly.

2,048 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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