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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what estimate he has made of the number of women who took unpaid maternity leave in 2017.

Our most recent data on unpaid maternity leave is from the Maternity and Paternity Rights Survey in 2009, which found that 11% of mothers received neither statutory maternity pay, occupational maternity pay nor Maternity Allowance. The main reasons for not receiving pay include not having sufficient continuous service with the same employer and being unemployed.

The Government will shortly commission a new survey, which will provide updated information.