Fathers to get up to six months' paternity leave

New rights, which will enable fathers to take up to six months' paternity leave, are due to be announced by the Government, it has been reported.

Ministers are expected to say that the time off can be taken during the last three months of a mother’s maternity leave if she returns to work. Fathers would be paid statutory maternity pay for this leave – currently £123.06 a week. They could then take a further three months unpaid leave.

The Government estimates that less than one in 16 fathers will leave work for a period of full-time childcare and that less than 1% of businesses will be affected.

The British Chamber of Commerce (BCC) recently called for a three-year moratorium on new employment legislation. Using the Government’s own impact assessments, the BCC has calculated that upcoming employment regulations and taxes will cost UK businesses £25.6bn over the next four years.

However, the TUC welcomed the move. TUC General Secretary, Brendan Barber, said:

“These proposals will help millions of people balance their work and family life. As both parents work in most modern families, it's right that mums and dads should decide who looks after their baby, rather than the state deciding for them by only paying the mother for parental leave.

“Business lobby groups have opposed every new family-friendly right, from flexible working to extended maternity pay. But in reality these changes have hugely benefited millions of families and have had no damaging effect on businesses.”

When the plans were first announced in September last year, Mike Emmott, Employee Relations Adviser at the CIPD, said the move was unlikely to have a dramatic impact. He commented:

“Our research shows that ‘paid paternity leave’, restricted as it is to a statutory £123.06 per week, is not attractive to the vast majority of fathers. We found that less than half of fathers would take even the existing two weeks paternity leave at statutory pay levels, many preferring to take paid leave instead. So the proposed increase in ‘paid’ paternity leave is unlikely to lead to any dramatic increase in take-up.

“However, we are pleased that the Government is evidently intending to move towards a more equitable sharing of the burden of child support between mothers and fathers in the early months after a baby is born. Any realistic plan to achieve this is bound to be expensive and could only be implemented over many years. However, without some further steps in this direction, the stated aim of all the main parties to close the gender pay gap will be hobbled in one important regard. This is a cultural issue that government cannot tackle alone. But there is a role for government, working closely with employers, to nudge cultural norms in the right direction.”