Employment Law Changes April 2010: Paternity Leave Entitlement
May 21st, 2010What’s new?
A new statutory right to additional paternity leave and pay come into force on April 6, 2010 for parents of children due on or after April 3, 2011. It also covers adoptive parents notified of having been matched with a child on or after that date.
Mothers and fathers will be able to share one year’s maternity leave, as long as the mother has completed six months of the leave. Some of the leave may be paid if taken during the mother’s maternity pay period (Statutory Maternity Pay rates apply).
Leave is protected and fathers, like the mother’s existing right, have the right to return to their original jobs after the last six months’ paternity leave. Existing paternity leave and pay provisions remain in force, now called ordinary paternity leave and ordinary statutory paternity pay.
For full details of maternity, paternity and adoption leave rights and responsibilities see our Maternity, Paternity & Adoption Leave Factsheet
What you need to do about the new statutory paternity leave entitlement
When an employee applies in writing you should ask them to self-certify their entitlement to paternity leave. HMRC has the right to check these requests. You also have the right to formally check your employee’s eligibility with their partner’ employers.
What we think about additional paternity leave
It will be interesting to see how many fathers exercise their paternity leave entitlement - and their employers’ reaction.
The current level of maternity pay (£124.88 a week from April 2010) is still very low and unlikely to be attractive to most men. Taking into account that the final 13 weeks of maternity leave remain unpaid – the last government backtracked on its intention for 12 months’ paid maternity leave – I imagine this provision will only be attractive where the woman earns substantially more than the man.
Of course, pressure from Europe to bring all EU countries into a higher or more family-friendly rate of maternity pay could change the picture. But given existing economic challenges for employers, this would seem unlikely to come about any time soon.
On the ground, expectant fathers we have spoken to say that while they would love to take six months’ paternity leave, they cannot afford it. And mums we have spoken to are universally reluctant to give up their one year with the baby.
However, for first time mums where decisions about whose career takes priority haven’t yet been made, we could start to see a change in those established patterns. And for some women the prospect of being able to lessen the period away from work while sharing responsibility with the father this could be very enticing.
So, while it won’t be relevant to everyone by any stretch of the imagination, this change does ofer a new level of flexibility to couples making those difficult life decisions for the first time. It will be interesting to watch and see what happens.
