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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of equalising paternity and maternity leave rights.

In 2019, the Government consulted on high-level options and principles for reforming the parental leave and pay system to enable parents to balance the gender division of parental leave. We are currently assessing the responses to the consultation and intend to publish our response later this year.

We are also carrying out an evaluation of the Shared Parental Leave and Pay scheme which was introduced in 2015. The scheme challenges the assumption that the mother will always be the primary carer and enables eligible working parents to share up to 50 weeks of leave and up to 37 weeks of pay in the first year of their child’s life. As part of this evaluation, we have undertaken a large-scale representative survey which sought views from over 3,000 parents on parental leave and entitlements. We are currently processing and analysing the data that we have collected and intend to publish our findings later this year, alongside the response to the consultation.