A member of the British Parliament has demanded reforms after a parliamentary official reprimanded him for bringing his sleeping child to Parliament.
Opposition leader Stella Cressie, who has campaigned for MPs to be granted maternity leave, received the warning after speaking in a debate holding her three-month-old son, Pip, on Tuesday.
The Labor MP from Walthamstow's London constituency tweeted an e-mail from a House of Commons official, citing a rule that "you should not sit in a chamber when you have a child with you."
Stella Cressie and other members of parliament questioned the decision, which appears to contradict previous guidelines on the practice.Alex Davis Jones, a Labor MP, tweeted that she was breastfeeding when she was elected in 2019, and Lindsay Howell, Speaker of the House of Commons, assured her that she would breastfeed her baby in Westminster Hall's main chamber. Which is a historic building.
Former Liberal Democrat leader Joe Swanson was reportedly the first MP to do so in 2018.
Stella Cressie complained that "mothers are not seen or heard in the mothers of all parliaments."
Chrissy regularly breastfeeds her son during discussions. She has been bringing her daughter with her before.
"He (the child) is very young and maybe some of my colleagues are making a lot of noise because of this," he told Sky News.
He called on the parliamentary authorities to be more flexible.
"It's a part of modern life, isn't it? Sometimes you may need to take your children with you."
It should be noted that despite the formal rules against this practice, MPs have been bringing children into the debate without any reprimand.Chrissy campaigned for MPs to get full maternity leave, which was unsuccessful.
"You can't win when you're a mother," she told Sky News.
The British government announced in February that it would introduce maternity leave for senior ministers with six months' pay, but MPs would not be entitled to it.
In 2019, Stella Cressie became the first member of parliament to hire a deputy to work in her constituency after the birth of her daughter, but she was not allowed to do so again.
