Clegg commits shared parental leave as Govt policy-Yay!

[matgb]

Clegg's speech at conference includes the line

A new economy that works for families. Where men and women can choose how to balance work and home. That’s why Liberal Democrats are bringing in shared parental leave and more flexible working.

This is a very cheering thing to see. I knew it was likely on the cards and was being worked on, but actually having it confirmed in the Deputy Prime Minister's conference speech is a very cool thing.

Because, basically, it's my idea and policy. It wasn't just me, but when I first took Jennie to conference she stewarded a consultancy session and suggested it to the policy working group that included people who're now ministers. At her next conference when she was a fully accredited voting rep, it was in the policy paper that working group created out of the consultations. Jennie swears it wasn't just her talking about it, but I wasn't there & I know she did propose it.

But we'd been talking about it at home in advance as it was something I felt would be very helpful, not just for our family arrangements but also to help solve ongoing disparities. Scarily? I first started thinking about it after Tim Worstall convinced me maternity leave was a big contributor to the gender pay gap issue, both directly and through covert discrimination. So, there we go. A flagship policy that grew out of a conversation I had online with a former UKIP press officer and candidate...

Comments

[miss_s_b]

Also in both development meetings for this were Susan G and Jo Crispy-Strips. Belinda BG was at the second one, and it's one of the things that got her to join the party. She's now a councillor for us :)

[matgb]

And she gave a damn fine speech during the domestic abuse debate as well.

[83_tauri]

Congratulations :)

[watervole]

It's also a policy that could be very useful for couples where one partner is transgender.

[matgb]

That hadn't even occurred to me TBH, but yes it could. And to other non-'normal' couples.

[watervole]

I have a trans daughter who wants to start a family with her partner, so it instantly came to my minds.

[chris]

Awesome! Fingers crossed that it can come to fruition, somehow, some day soon.

*thumbs up* \o/

[andrewducker]

Just so you know, I just found the bug that meant that when no links were found the posting time wasn't incremented to the next day.

Which means that over the next few hours you may get a couple of posts while it catches up. If you have any links, that is.

[matgb]

Fair enough, but no, no links, been mostly skim reading and trying to motivate for unpacking/tidying/sorting.

[andrewducker]

Aaah, gotcha. I was just looking at the database and noticing that you had a post in the queue, but with a date in the past, and it took me a while to notice that this was because it wasn't moving on to the next day unless it had found links. If you haven't tagged anything recently then you're safe :->

[eiffel_71]

Greetings! We've met before on livejournal, and I read the lovely miss_s_b on here. Glad to catch up.