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Tuesday, 19 October 2005

Johnson delivers on family friendly promise

FATHERS of babies could get the right to take six months’ leave under new family friendly legislation unveiled by Trade and Industry Secretary Alan Johnson.

The Work and Families Bill aims to create a modern framework of employment rights and responsibilities for employers and employees while minimising the impact on business.

It extends maternity pay from six months to nine months, but fathers rather than mothers could take the last three months.
Mr Johnson said that choice, equality and flexibility were at the heart of the new measures, to help all working families balance busy home and work lives.

“Today’s bill delivers on our commitment to help working parents balance the demands of their job with caring for their children by introducing a modern framework of rights and responsibilities that offers real choice and flexibility,” he said.

“To help mothers we will extend paid maternity leave to nine months with the aim of increasing it to a year. Increasingly fathers want to play a more active role in bringing up their children, so we will help fathers take time off when the mother returns to work by introducing a new right to paternity leave. And we will also help those who care for elderly or sick relatives by extending to them the right to request flexible working.

“Our consultation showed broad support for our family friendly approach, but today’s bill also includes a number of measures to make it easier for businesses to deal with employees taking time off to give their child the best start in life.”

New measures in the bill and forthcoming regulations include:

• Extending statutory maternity pay and maternity allowance to nine months from April 2007 with the ambition of moving to a year by the end of the Parliament (including extending eligibility for additional maternity leave);
• A power to introduce new paternity leave for fathers, enabling them to benefit from leave and statutory pay if the mother returns to work after six months but before the end of her maternity leave period;
• Extending the right to request flexible working to carers from April 2007;
• Measures to help businesses manage the administration of statutory maternity pay, statutory paternity pay and statutory adoption pay;
• Introducing keeping in touch days so that where employees and employers agree, a women on maternity leave can go into work for a few days, without losing her right to maternity leave or a week’s statutory pay;
• Extending the period of notice for return from maternity leave to two months enabling employees and employers to more effectively plan for return to work;
• Making clear in the regulations that employers can make reasonable contact with their employees on maternity leave to help employers plan and ease the mother’s return to work.

The plans were given a cautious seal of approval by the Institute of Directors.

Director General Miles Templeman said: “Allowing new parents to trade off their maternity and paternity leave will hopefully benefit employers. If the mother is the more highly skilled and productive parent and returns to work sooner than expected, while her partner cares for the child, many businesses will suffer less disruption than under the present arrangements.”

Further details on the Work and Families consultation and Government response can be found by following this link: www.dti.gov.uk/workandfamilies