Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask His Majesty's Government what the average length of neonatal care leave has been since 6 April 2025; and whether they will publish a breakdown of the number of parents taking neonatal care leave for each individual week of entitlement.

HMRC does not receive data on exact claim duration. However, it is possible to estimate the duration of a claim based on total amounts of Statutory Neonatal Care Pay claimed. The average length of a claim is currently estimated at 2.3 weeks. The distribution of this is shown in the table below:

Notes:

1) Data collected using HMRC Real Time Information (RTI) and extracted in December 2025. RTI is subject to revision or updates.

2) Cases have been rounded to nearest 100.