Conditions of Employment

(asked on 4th February 2021) - View Source

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether he has made an assessment of the implications for his policies of the UK being ranked by UNICEF 34 out of 41 OECD countries for family friendly policies; and if he will take urgent steps to support people on parental leave during the covid-19 outbreak.


Answered by
Paul Scully Portrait
Paul Scully
This question was answered on 9th February 2021

We have a strong tradition of supporting working families in the UK and our parental leave arrangements are generous and flexible.

We go much further than the EU minimum and employed women in the UK have access to up to 52 weeks of Maternity Leave , 39 weeks of which are paid. Where the mother does not intend to use her full maternity entitlements, she can share up to 50 weeks of leave and up to 37 weeks of pay with her partner , subject to the parents being eligible for Shared Parental Leave and Pay.

In 2020 we introduced Parental Bereavement Leave and Pay to support parents who suffered the loss of a child. We will also legislate to create a new Neonatal Leave and Pay entitlement to support new parents whose baby needs to spend time in neonatal care, as soon as parliamentary time allows.

The Government is sympathetic to the position that new parents have found themselves in during the pandemic. We have taken steps to support new parents by passing emergency legislation which ensures that parents who are furloughed during the period that is used to determine entitlement to Maternity, Adoption and other family-related statutory pay do not lose out. This legislation ensures that entitlement to pay and the rate of pay that parents receive is based on their normal earnings, not their furlough pay.

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