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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to the Answer of 29 July 2018 to Question 137053 on Parental Leave, whether the Government has now commissioned the survey data referred to; and whether the review will consider the eligibility criteria for shared parental leave for people in (a) new employment and (b) self-employment.

We have started the evaluation of the Shared Parental Leave and Pay schemes and expect to be in a position to publish the findings of the evaluation in the Spring of 2019.

The evaluation will consider the barriers to parents taking Shared Parental Leave and Pay and how the schemes are being used in practice - including by self-employed mothers who qualify for Maternity Allowance. Whilst we are not planning to review the eligibility criteria at the current time, as part of the evaluation we will be speaking to range of stakeholders, including groups who are lobbying Government to extend parental entitlements to the self-employed.