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 oral contribution of the Paymaster General on 1 March 2021, Official Report, column 51, what progress the Government has made on its legislative proposals for shared parental leave and adoption leave; and if he will make a statement.

Shared Parental Leave and Pay was introduced in Great Britain in 2014 for parents of children who were due or placed for adoption from April 2015. We are currently evaluating the scheme and will report on the evaluation later this year. Statutory Adoption Leave and Pay has been available to eligible employees since 2002, and in 2014 we made changes to the scheme to bring it into line with arrangements for Maternity Leave and Pay. Since 2014, Adoption Leave has been a “day 1” right and the first six weeks of Statutory Adoption Pay have been paid at an earnings-related rate (90% of the employee’s weekly earnings with no upper limit).

As part of the evaluation of Shared Parental Leave and Pay we commissioned large, representative, surveys of parents and employees which asked about a broad range of parental leave and pay entitlements. We have also consulted on high-level options for reforming parental leave and pay. The information that we have collected through these surveys and the consultation will give us a fuller picture of how well the current system of parental leave and pay is working for parents and employers.

We are currently processing and analysing this information and we will publish our findings later in the year.