Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether their Department offers its staff shared parental leave from their first working day.

Shared parental leave is not offered as standard from the first working day for the Department’s employees. The Civil Service Management Code states that shared parental leave may only be granted in accordance with statutory requirements governing eligibility for this category of leave. However, some staff could qualify for statutory shared parental leave on their first day of service with a particular Department because they already have service with another Department.

The Department complies with the United Kingdom’s law, which dictates that employees and their partners, with whom they share primary responsibility for the child, must have been employed by their respective employer for at least 26 weeks continuously by the end of the 15th week before the expected week of childbirth or adoption.

As with any changes to employment legislation, internal policies and processes will be updated as appropriate in preparation for when the Employment Rights Bill 2024 comes into place.