James millar
Jo Swinson, minister and new mum, has admitted she considered quitting frontline politics. to get totally up to speed with things.
“In some ways it was going back in at the deep end but it was quite helpful to do that.”
Swinson admits that like many mums she lost confidence while on maternity leave.
She said: “Get me to make up a new verse to “The Wheels on the Bus” and I can do that on the spot, but you slightly fear that your knowledge of the things you were doing before might have gone.
“When I’m in a meeting and suddenly I’ll refer to some obscure piece of legislation that I remember I think that’s good, it’s still in there.”
Once I was in a routine I could do some canvassing
independence referendum.
She explained: “Once I felt we’d got into a semblance of a routine and he was sleeping a bit better at night I would do some canvassing on the phone because I’m just so passionate about keeping Scotland in the UK and keeping our country together.”
With a referendum just weeks away and a general election within months at which Swinson and MP husband Duncan Hames will both be defending slim Lib Dem majorities it seems a bad time to become a mother.
She laughed: “There’s never a good time to have a baby. I’ve got specific political issues but other people have much more difficult things they have to deal with.”
Ironically life will be easier if either she or Hames lose their seat. Currently the family shuttle between Westminster, her East Dunbartonshire seat and his in Chippenham.
She added: “There’s a lot of travelling. I am tending to fly more now because it’s a bit more manageable.
“That said I’ve had nightmare journeys. There was a delay of hour and a half on the tarmac in Glasgow in June and let’s just say Andrew wasn’t at his happiest.
“Then there was the time we got stuck in the lift for 90 minutes and missed our flight.”
Swinson is tight lipped about the reshuffle rumours but keen to publicise Lib Dem plans for shared parental leave that will come into force for people getting pregnant from now.
Parents of babies with a due date after April 1 next year will be able to carve up 12 months of parental leave between them.
That means a mum could take six months then dad could take the next six, or both parents could take the first six months off together for example.
Added Swinson: “Two weeks of paternity leave feels very short.
“When your baby is two weeks old it still feels like you’re struggling to be on top of the basics at that point. It would be really valuable for families to choose to have
There are plenty dads who want to
be involved
longer together if that’s what they want at that point.”
She added: “Frankly government shouldn’t be in the job of enforcing stereotypes that say it’s only a mother’s job to look after babies because there’s plenty of dads out there who feel strongly that they want to be involved in bringing up their children from the very early stages and to be sharing that as an equal rather than as some sort of add on helper who maybe gets permission to look after the children for an hour or two at a time.”