MP highlights council leader’s loss in call for better bereavement help

A SOMERSET MP has marked Baby Loss Awareness Week by paying tribute to a former council leader who lost “much-loved twins”

- DANIEL MUMBY Local democracy journalist [e-mail]

John Osman, inset, was referenced during a House of Commons debate by Wells and Mendip Hills MP Tessa Munt Picture: Houses of Parliament/ John Osman

(Houses of Parliament John Osman)

John Osman served as Conservative leader for Somerset County Council between May 2012 and the local elections of May 2017, and was the inaugural chairman of the Somerset Rivers Authority (SRA) upon its creation in 2015.

Mr Osman and his wife Holly, who live in Wells, suffered a tragic loss in November 2018 when their twins Logan and Lottie were born four months premature, both dying less than an hour after being delivered.

Tessa Munt, the Liberal Democrat MP for Wells and Mendip Hills, paid tribute to the Osmans in the House of Commons on the evening of Monday, October 13, and called on the government to provide more support for bereaved parents.

Ms Munt served as the Lib Dem MP for Wells between 2010 and 2015 (overlapping Mr Osman’s first three years as council leader), and subsequently won his Wells seat on the council at the 2017 local elections (two years after losing her parliamentary seat to Tory candidate James Heappey).

With Mrs Osman watching from the House of Commons public gallery, Ms Munt said the experience of losing a child “transcends all political differences” and said it was “vital that we see the quality of bereavement care standardised” across the UK.