Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether her Department offers additional parental leave to its employees who become parents of premature babies.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy does not currently offer additional parental leave specifically to employees who become parents of premature babies. All employees can apply for paid special leave or unpaid parental leave, both of which are considered on a case-by-case basis.

The Department does offer employees maternity leave, adoption leave, paternity leave, and shared parental leave.

The Government is committed to enhancing workers’ rights and to supporting people to balance their work and caring responsibilities. We have already laid regulations in Parliament that will give grieving parents a right to paid time off work. We will also introduce a new entitlement to carers’ leave as well as entitlement to paid leave for parents of children who spend time in neonatal care.

We are committed to making the UK the best place to work and grow a business. As announced in the Queen’s Speech, we will bring forward an Employment Rights Bill to deliver the greatest reform of workers’ rights in over 20 years.