Work and Families

You may have heard recently that the Government’s Work and Families Bill was introduced to the House of Commons on 18 October.  It is yet another piece of radical employee-friendly legislation that will delight the unions and horrify many bosses.

One change proposed in the Bill is to increase the number of holidays that all workers are entitled to.  The current position is that the statutory minimum holiday entitlement of four weeks can include the eight bank holidays.  The plan is to change this so that everyone will get a minimum of 28 days’ holiday a year.  How this will affect part timers will become clearer when the detail of the new law is published.

As you might be able to tell from the title, the main focus of the Bill is extending the so-called “family friendly” employment provisions we already have in place.  The Government is committed to increasing maternity pay from 6 months to 1 year during the life of Parliament.  The first step of this is that from April 2007, the period of time for which a woman is entitled to Statutory Maternity Pay will increase from 6 months to 9 months.

“Keeping in touch” days will also be introduced for mothers so that where employee and employer agree, a woman on maternity leave can go into work for a few days without losing her right to maternity leave or Statutory Maternity Pay.  It seems likely that this will benefit the new mother more than the employer, as it could prove to be quite disruptive in practice and of course the employer will simply have to grin and bear it.

Another change to the maternity leave provisions, and this time one that is definitely for the benefit of employers, is that women who want to return to work early from maternity leave will have to give 2 months’ notice and regulations will make it clear that employers can make reasonable contact with employees on maternity leave.  This is very helpful as anyone who has faced a maternity-related sex discrimination claim will know – a common complaint from the woman is that “I’d just had a baby and my boss was constantly on the phone nagging me to come back to work”.

The Bill also makes changes to the rights that men have in relation to paternity leave – that is the right for fathers to take time off work to be with their children.  Strangely enough this was an election promise the Government made and haven’t forgotten about!  The current position is that a father can take either one or two consecutive weeks off (odd days are not allowed) during the first 56 days of the child’s life.  During this leave, men are entitled to Statutory Paternity Pay at the current rate of £106 a week or 90% of average weekly earnings if this is less than £106, which is exactly the same as Statutory Maternity Pay..

The draft Bill provides that regulations can increase paternity leave from 2 to 26 weeks which must be taken in the first year of the child’s life.  In relation to paternity pay, the regulations are likely to provide that if the mother returns to work after 6 months but before she has exhausted her maternity pay, the benefit of this can be transferred to the father.  This is a system that’s in place in Scandinavia, but how successful the idea of transferable maternity leave will be in this country, remains to be seen..

It’s also worth pointing out that following the Civil Partnership Act, which comes in to force in December of this year, any additional rights to paternity and parental leave will also be granted to same sex couples with children.

Finally, the Bill plans to extend the right to request flexible working.  Currently parents of young or disabled children have the right to make an application to change their working hours, by going part time or working from home etc, in order to care for their children.  The plan is to extend this to all carers in 2007 

As with all new employment laws these days the devil will be in the detail.  The sooner detailed regulations are published the better.  Although if you’re thinking of starting a family it might be worth waiting a bit – you’ll almost certainly have even more employment rights in a couple of years!

Published 27/09/2006.