Please tell us what you think by completing our consultation questions on flexible parental leave (opens a Survey Monkey Questionaire)
We’re also really keen to hear about your experiences of maternity and paternity leave. Are you an employer? We’d like to hear how the current arrangements are working and what the proposed changes might mean.
Or perhaps you are a parent who would appreciate more flexible leave after the birth of your child?
Share your views by posting a comment in the right-hand box.
You can read the relevant chapter below or download the pdf document here
I think the proposals are a nail in the coffin for British businesses. We are all struggling at the moment and to impose all these new rules which include payment from ourselves is too excessive.
All it will do is make employees not want to employ women, it is a retrograde step. To let men have the same rights is ludicrous as well. Especially where most manufacturing industries rely on production lines. How can you cope with this policy. You will have to set on extra people to cover for maternity/paternity leave and you will not be able to finish them as they have rights as well.
The extra financial burden on small companies will be very difficult.
I think it is a very misplaced policy and one that was thought out under a Labour Government but I never would have thought that a Conservative government would try and implement it.
That comment is absolutely ridiculous. Given the current rates of unemployment, it will be very easy for employers to find cover – wther that be male or female cover – for their employees when they take parental leave. Currently a mother has the right to take time off, but the father’s is dependent on the mother ebing in employment, and they have much less scope for taking parental leave. It is difficult to see why this should affect businesses detrimentally – mothers can already take up to a year off, so why should it affect businesses at all if that is shared between the mother and father? the same amount of leave will be taken, but will be shared between the sexes. Currently there is a large pay gap between the pay rates of men and women, and women have less chances of ebing promoted. this is arguably down to the fcat that women take time off to have children, making them less ‘promotable’. a change in the law is necessary in order to give us the opportunity to lessen these draconian inequalities, and i think the government should be applauded for this.
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I think its great having an opportunity for fathers to look after the baby.It gives parents flexible options on how they can provide and look after their young ones.
Please can some one tell me how this is to be paid for and by who – small companies cannot
pay out all this money and not be able to claim from those who authorised this system. I still have to work at 79 yrs. old to live. To keep staff employed and pay wages,directors work 7 days week. If we are forced to pay additional amounts – we will have to close down. Or have I misunderstood who eventually will pay the cost of all this.
Im not sure you understand its not that you have to pay double just that it can be shared between both parents more equally than before. So im assuming the cost wont be much different than the maternity pay you are having to pay already
In response to consultation question 15 (“Up to what age of the child should unpaid parental leave be available?”):
I consider it very important to raise the child age limit for unpaid parental leave from 5 to at least 16, and possibly even 18. Reason: To help children and parents in situations where the child is, or has recently been, seriously ill, necessitating care by a parent. The current system is anomalous in that during short-term adverse circumstances, parents of children who are between the ages of 6 and 18 aren’t catered for at all, even though those children might be every bit as dependent, all-be-it temporarily, as under 5’s or older children who are registered as disabled.
Adverse circumstances might arise for a multitude of reasons, and involve medical conditions with varying degrees of severity. Nonetheless, it is undoubtedly the case that sometimes it is only practical – or reasonable in a civilised society – for a child to be cared for, or be accompanied, by a parent. Examples: a child with an infectious illness; a child in hospital undergoing treatment; a child requiring post operative care by a parent while convalescing at home; a child undergoing a multi-day course of treatment for a serious, even terminal, illness.
Parental leave may be appropriate, or effectively essential, for the purposes of meeting the practical care requirements of the child, but also in terms of the benefits the parent’s attendance brings to emotional well-being.
Unpaid (or paid for that matter) compassionate leave doesn’t help, because it is a vague concept and non-mandatory … Some employers won’t voluntarily give it, or they are discriminating / inconsistent in their approach.
My suggestion is to make provision for hard working parents, and families which are vulnerable in certain situations, often through no fault of their own.
It seems that particularly within the NHS, whole depts are affected by staff being off at the same time. 3 mth waiting list apparently because of this. As aself-employed person, strugling with minor/chronic illness, it seems strange that people are off work because of having a child.
4 weeks annual leave is enough for everyone – enough for new fathers and fair to those of us without children! New mothers should stay at home – it is a nuisance for everyone else who has to cover, or help temps.
I OBJECT all these extra perks
At last some one is raising questions for reducing all this time away from their employment because they have a baby.
I had 5 sons at the end of the war, husband in the Navy – so he never got paternity leave, I worked when each son was 5 months old. All sons did their school time, worked hard, one graduated GP. lived in Council house for a number of years, NO BENEFITS – just hard work,
If people are unable to workd due to illness I am all for benefit system, but having babies, what happened to looking after tme, my mother and father looked after us and worked, we learn from this. Now I see 16 yr olds, having babies (two by the time they are 23 yrs. never worked, went to college, but decided that was to much brain work, easier to have babies and get benefits. Two fathers of babies never worked or their families. What happened to pride in achievement. Do babies really need so much attention. Less holidays and more education/motivation. One compsnu has 40
YES FORTY FEMALES ON MATERNITY LEAVE. One person 3 babies in three years, still gets paid ? Please tell me who funds all this ? I am employer and know as a smaller company we cannot claim back, only if we are a very big company. Thank you for allowing me to raise issues that we all talk about but never action.