A week ago, hundreds of children's shoes were laid out in Parliament Square.
They belonged to children who had died.
The protest was organised by It's Never You, the charity founded by Ceri and Frances Menai-Davis after their son Hugh died from cancer in 2021, aged six. Parents brought shoes, photographs and belongings to Westminster to make the lives behind the campaign impossible to reduce to another consultation on employment policy.
The families were asking for better support after bereavement.
They were also making a different argument about what happens before it.
That distinction has been blurred in some coverage of Hugh's Law.
Britain already has statutory Parental Bereavement Leave. An eligible employee whose child dies before turning 18 can take two weeks' leave from the first day of their employment. Those who meet the separate earnings and service requirements can receive statutory pay, currently £194.32 a week or 90 per cent of average earnings, whichever is lower. Employment rights continue while that leave is taken.
Two weeks does not settle the argument about whether bereaved families receive enough support.
But Hugh's Law is aimed principally at another hole in the system.
If a child of seven is diagnosed with cancer and spends months in hospital, there is no equivalent dedicated statutory right giving their parent paid leave simply because that child is seriously ill.
Parents may use annual leave. They may qualify for unpaid carer's leave or unpaid parental leave. Some employers provide much more generous help voluntarily. Benefits may be available depending on the family's circumstances.
None is the same as a specific right to step away from work on pay because your child has suddenly become seriously ill.
That is what Ceri and Frances Menai-Davis have spent years trying to change.
The current Hugh's Law campaign calls for statutory paid leave and employment protection for parents of seriously ill children, so that being at a child's bedside does not depend on how accommodating an employer happens to be or how long a family can survive on reduced income.
The case has already reached Parliament.
During a Westminster Hall debate in March 2025, Labour MP Chris Hinchliff described parents being forced to reduce work, navigate benefits or absorb sudden financial losses while caring for seriously ill children.
The version of Hugh's Law discussed then proposed immediate support of £750 a month, not subject to a means test, for up to three months after diagnosis. The campaign has since developed towards statutory paid leave and employment protection rather than one fixed final legislative model.
The government is no longer ignoring it.
On 9 June it opened a formal consultation on employment rights for unpaid carers and parents of seriously ill children. Hugh's Law is explicitly included.
Ministers are considering whether further rights are needed and what form additional support should take. The consultation remains open until 1 September.
That is progress.
It is not a law.
There is no guarantee yet that parents whose child develops a serious illness will receive paid statutory leave, how long any entitlement would last, what rate it would be paid at or which illnesses would qualify.
That is why the shoes outside Parliament still matter.
The uncomfortable gap in the current system appears at exactly the moment when a family has the least capacity to negotiate with it.
A child can become seriously ill overnight.
The mortgage does not stop. Neither does rent. Travel to hospital costs money. Parking costs money. Food away from home costs money. Other children still need looking after.
An employer may behave compassionately.
The law should not depend on finding one who does.
There is something particularly strange about the line Britain currently draws.
If a child dies, the law recognises that their parent needs protected time away from work.
If that same child spends the preceding months undergoing chemotherapy, surgery or intensive treatment, there is no equivalent dedicated statutory entitlement to paid leave for the parent sitting beside them.
The state recognises the catastrophe once the child has died more clearly than it recognises the period in which the family is desperately trying to stop that happening.
Hugh's Law will need boundaries. Parliament would have to decide what counts as serious illness, who qualifies, how long leave lasts, how much employers or the state should pay and how smaller businesses are protected from disproportionate costs.
Those are legitimate policy questions.
They are not a reason for leaving the present gap untouched.
The parents who placed their children's shoes in Parliament Square have already paid the highest price imaginable.
They should not also have to prove, one pair of shoes at a time, that families need help before bereavement as well as after it.