UK Parliament Sets Rule To Ban MP From Bringing Her 3-Month-Old Baby To Work

A British lawmaker was told to stop bringing her 3-month-old to Parliament, spurring debate on what it means to be a mother working as a politician.

Stella Creasy, a Member of Parliament for the opposition Labour Party, said she received an email on Tuesday saying she broke rules of behavior and courtesies in the House of Commons states, which states that "you should not take your seat in the Chamber when accompanied by a child."

“Apparently Parliament has written a rule which means I can’t take my well behaved, 3-month old, sleeping baby when I speak in chamber,” Creasy said in a Tweet. She noted that there are still no rules on wearing masks in Parliament.

“Mothers in the mother of all parliament are not to be seen or heard it seems,” she added.

Creasy has been calling for changes to parliamentary rules around maternity leave for MPs for years amid a general push to make Parliament more family-friendly, NBC News noted.

"My son is 13 weeks old, so I can't really leave him on his own and I don't have any maternity cover. So I kind of can't win here," Creasy told BBC News on Wednesday.

Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle has asked the Commons Procedure Committee on Wednesday to review current rules on bringing babies into Parliament given what happened to Creasy.

“Rules have to be seen in context and they change with the times,” Hoyle told the PA Media news agency.

Creasy received support from two other MPs on Twitter.

“When I was first elected I was still exclusively breastfeeding my child. I met with [Hoyle] to discuss this and was assured that if the need arose I would be able to feed my child in the chamber or Westminster Hall,” MP Alex Davies-Jones said.

Meanwhile, Green MP Caroline Lucas called the situation an “absurd” ruling, adding that babies are “far less disruptive than many braying backbenchers.”

A House of Commons spokesperson said they are speaking directly to Creasy but it remains unclear what prompted Tuesday's letter given that Creasy has previously taken her first child to work when he was younger.