MP sparks fierce row after bringing baby to Commons
LABOUR MP Stella Creasy has provoked a ferocious row over whether babies should be taken to work after she revealed her 13-week-old son has been banned from the Commons.
Ms Creasy, 44, was slapped with an official rebuke for carrying her baby in a sling during a parliamentary debate.
After she complained, Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle asked a committee of MPs to review the rules.
But Tory MP Scott Benton questioned why she needed to bring her son in.
He told her: “Parents who get paid a fraction of what you do pay for childcare and juggle responsibilities so they can go to work.”
Sir Lindsay said it was “extremely important” for parents to be able to participate fully in the work of the House, which is why it has a nursery. He then asked the Commons Procedure Committee to “look into this matter”. Ms Creasy said she hopes “some of these rules will be reviewed to make parenting and politics possible to mix”.
The MP for Walthamstow has previously taken part in debates while carrying one of her two children. Following the 2019 election she was sworn in while carrying daughter Hettie. But after appearing with her son at the adjoining Westminster Hall on Tuesday, she received an email from the private secretary to the chairman of the ways and means committee, Dame Eleanor Laing.
It said having the baby with her was not in line with rules on “behaviour and courtesies”.
She received the warning despite Pip being observed to be behaving “as good as gold” during the debate.
Ms Creasy, who has no maternity cover, told Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour: “I have a 13-week-old baby and it’s not feasible to leave him for any length of time because he’s breastfeeding...
“It’s not rocket science why there aren’t many women of childbearing age and women with small children in our parliament.”
Former Lib-Dem leader Jo Swinson is believed to be the first MP to take her baby into the chamber during a debate, in 2018.