Watch my speech on protecting bereaved mothers

In 2003, I became part of a club no-one wants to join: the young widows club, after my husband died of oesophageal cancer when our daughters were very young.

Over the following months, I met with many other young widows, including those whose partners had passed away before their babies were born. It was then that I learnt about the traumatic, difficult, and often costly process these women had to go through to register their partner’s name on their baby’s birth certificate.

Fast forward 22 years and nothing has changed. Incredibly, in 2025, if you are pregnant when your partner dies, but you are not married, the law says that you cannot automatically name the father on the birth certificate.

The amazing organisation Widowed & Young has long been campaigning for the law to change around this – and today, I was proud to lead a debate on this issue and call for the Government to urgently update this archaic law