Government consults on parental leave

The Fatherhood Institute is encouraging men to contribute to the government consultation on parental leave.

The government is consulting on plans to increase the amount and flexibility of parental leave for new parents from 2015 - and to reserve part of this leave especially for fathers. Charlie Rice of the Fatherhood Institute said: 'we believe that it is important for everyone to have their say especially as we know that when a dad forms a good bond with his new born baby the subsequent impact on the child’s development and well-being is hugely improved, these proposals could go some way to enhance choice and opportunities for new mums and dads.' The Institute have set up a survey for men and women to complete.

The proposed changes

At the moment, mothers get 39 weeks of paid maternity leave, and fathers two weeks of paid paternity leave. Under the new system there would be:

18 weeks of maternity leave and pay (ie. for mothers), in one continuous block around the birth
Two weeks of paternity leave and pay (ie. for fathers) in one continuous block around the birth
Four weeks of parental leave and pay exclusive to each parent, to be taken in the first year
30 weeks of additional parental leave available to either parent - of which 17 weeks would be paid; this could be broken into blocks between parents (it may also be that this could be taken part-time by parents, so both could work AND care for a child in the same week).

Charlie Rice says: 'We will be contributing to the government’s consultation ourselves, but we also want to know what you think – so we can feed your views in. We especially want to hear from dads, about how much parental leave they reckon they’d take – we also want to hear from mums or are just interested in the subject, we’d also love to hear your views and the views of your members and networks. The survey only takes a few minutes to complete and we will enter everyone who fills it in, into a prize draw to win a £50 Marks and Spencer token.'

You can also ‘Like' the Fatherhood Institutes new Facebook page at www.facebook.com/workingdads, to share your experiences of being a working father - and share the survey with your friends there.