Nick Clegg announces changes to parental leave today - What do you think?

I am shocked that there is no current allowance for fathers (non baby carrying parent) to be able to attend antenatal appoitnments.

Having had an early mc, I see it as essential that my partner is with me for scans etc. His finding leave for this is already troubling me - he only gets 4 weeks a year!

We are also in the situation where I earn more than he does, and will have to consider him being the main carer when the time comes. So essentially, this would be a good thing.

In general though 2 weeks paternity is seriously too short. I'd echo the comment above about it being 4 weeks. And bottom line - more affordable childcare will open more doors than shared parental leave.

This is a bit like the Scandinavian countries and I think it's good. You're never going to be able to legislate to make everyone's lives easier at a stroke, but this means that a) in cases where the woman is employed and is the major breadwinner, she can go back to work at whatever point suits and her partner can take over the childcare until paid childcare kicks in and b) in households where earnings are on a par it makes it possible for both parents to share the care. It has got to be a good thing, surely, for society to allow more men to care for their children. The immediate burden falls on women by default - this will go some way to alleviating it won't it? Not sure it will affect breastfeeding rates - women who want to do it will do what they always have and take time off. In fact it might be easier to go back to work whilst BF if your OH is at home as you have total support - using and storing expressed milk easier to do from home I imagine? Strongly agree with whoever made the point that for women with twins, or PND it's a godsend. Too many women are left isolated and unsupported at a really vulnerable time and this would allow dads to take some proper time off rather than the token amount given at the moment. Also, nobody has to take the entire 52 weeks, it will be a choice based on many factors, as ever.

I agree that the move toward shared leave is a huge step forward. The main obstacle to this being implemented however, is the attitude of employers. When I have discussed this with male and female friends, most of the men suggested that their employer would see them taking parental leave "differently" to the allowances they would make for a female employee. Measures to tackle these attitudes (for example, perks for companies who subscribe to Investors in People style schemes which promote uptake of shared leave) would make the legislation more comprehensive.

As for protecting breastfeeding, I think this is a personal choice and shouldn't be dictated by the government. Couples (or women) who chose to breastfeed for an extended period will obviously make and prioritise this choice and arrange their leave accordingly. Perhaps not everyone will have the luxury of choosing this however (where the females partner's salary outstrips the male partner's) and these couples should not have choices taken away form them.

I don't understand exactly how this works if one partner is unemployed. If a woman was unemployed at the time of her baby's birth, would her (employed) partner be entitled to any eave through his own employer? Or is leave sharing dependent on the woman being entitled to SML (as I think is the case at the moment)?

Yes yes yes to proper flexibility in sharing parental leave. I am pregnant and looked into sharing leave with my partner, but found it really unhelpful that I have to take 20 weeks before he can take any at all. So v pleased it is changing (although not in time for our situ sadly)

Being able to share leave would be a huge step forward for equality. Perhaps in future there might be less prejudice against hiring women of childbearing age if men have equal rights to leave (and as more women become the higher earner in a couple, more men will be likely to use it).

private sector employer..

This is RUBBISH. "Paternity leave will remain at two weeks, to be reviewed in 2018." Reviewed in 2018??!! All this tosh about equal rights. Government not really doing as they say.

And I can't believe this isn't a right already. Gasp. "Fathers will gain a new right to take unpaid leave to attend two antenatal appointments."

Mumzy - it's the same amount of leave as before. It's just (potentially) being shared between two people.

If the mother returns to work at 6 weeks then she will be back in her job. If the father then takes leave from 6 weeks to a year then he'll be away from his job. No different than if the mother had take a full year's leave.

I guess you could see a higher number of couples being able to utilise the year's leave available to them by law. But it's always been a possibility for an employer that a pregnant employee will take a year's leave and they have to, even under the current legislation, plan accordingly.

This spreads the risk a bit for employers with predominantly female workforces. E.g my public sector employer will see me back at work 6 months earlier than they would have done before parental leave could be shared. My husband's private sector employee will lose him for 6 months, swings and roundabouts.

The announcement is that it's happening from 2015, mumzy. They're in government, it's not really the same thing as a "promise". It's an announcement.

I can't see Labour abandoning it if they get back in in 2015, by the way, in fact I think they readily came into line with the idea when it was first mooted a few years ago.

How is this to be funded. Even in my area of the public sector Existing staff are now having to cover maternity leave rather than paying someone to provide cover. I see it as another one of the lib dems pie in the sky promises like the no tuition fees debacle. When will he ever learn!

A surprising number of people seem to see pregnancy and maternity leave as a gross self-indulgence and seem to imagine that the whole of ML is spent lounging around on cushions, having manicures and eating peeled grapes. I think the only thing that will change that perception is if/when men start to take similar amounts of parental leave to women - parenting would be more likely to be seen as a normal part of life and a perfectly reasonable thing to do, rather than an aberration. Hopefully their would be a cultural change as people would find it harder to put all the responsibility for childcare on women. And employers who discriminate against women of 'child bearing age' (ugh) would have to think twice. I hope it will make the workplace fairer for all.

Oh, and it really shouldn't be any sort of additional problem for small businesses. If a small business owner can't work out that splitting the same amount of leave between two people rather than allotting it all to one person leaves them in a net same position as they are in now, they probably shouldn't be running a business at all.

It may potentially leave SMEs who've deliberately discriminated against women in their recruitment up the swanny, but frankly that's quite funny.

I think unequal earnings between partners is a bit of a red herring. This is not a measure aimed at equalizing earnings - nor should it be. It just opens the door to a greater number of arrangements. Long overdue.

I think it's a good idea but there are a few flaws in it, for example my DH could never do this despite his being employed, because I am self employed. I earn more but these rights do nothing for us because of my self employed status.

...small/medium business owners who employ even!

I can see it being a terrifying prospect for small/medium who employ. I was speaking to a guy who was recruiting recently, the fact was that he simply couldn't afford for one of their employees to go on maternity leave (he would very much like to be in a position to afford it). He said at the moment it would probably be too much and send them under.

On the other hand, I think that business should move to operate on a more flexible basis, the work ethic in this country is so family un-friendly IMO.

And many women in this country earn more than their partners. With less of a presumption that women will stay at home with their children this may increase.

I get that it's no use if your partner is a much higher earner, but equally the status quo left many families where the female partner was the much higher earner with very few choices about taking leave at all.

Hang on, women can return to work 2 weeks postpartum already. That's the minimum you currently have to take.

So it's a complete red herring that this will force women back then. It doesn't seem to currently (I don't know of anyone except ultra high flying professionals a la Xenia who has done this), so the only difference is that your dp could care for the baby rather than other childcare, if that's what you want to do.

I think it's great. Currently women who have to return to work early for financial reasons, or want to return to work, have to find childcare for their babies. This lets the other parent take on the primary carer role. It makes perfect sense to me.

Most of the people who will be affected by this change would have been returning anyway and putting their child into childcare, so I don't think the bf issue actually applies. The status quo doesn't encourage women to bf for six months - many women can't afford to stay at home on SMP that long.

I hope that women won't feel pressured to return after two weeks by some employers.

I really hope this happens, parental leave needs reforming.

The two week rule already exists and has the delightful name of "confinement"!! Its illegal for a woman to return to work before this confinement period. I don't think anyone is suggesting that a woman should return to work at 2 weeks (although some HAVE to for finances - single parents, self-employed etc).

I shouted at Breakfast news this morning when an email was read out from a "small business owner" who complained that this will cripple them. Grrr, only if you're entire workforce is male??? And i am highly suspicious of any workforce that is entirely male - even in typically male areas there are usually woman. I mean, who makes them tea and answers phones ;-) Several friends of mine who own small businesses have openly admitted that they do not interview/ recruit women due to the maternity leave problem... as far as I am concerned Nick Clegg's announcements therefore deals with two HUGE inequalities women still face: small employers will have to stop discriminating at interview and women can return to work and have the father (or other parent) look after the baby.

should reduce the bias against women of childbearing age maybe and make companies more flexible if they have to allow men leave etc as well.

In reality would make absolutely no difference to us as husband has his own company and couldn't afford to take time off. well obviously for the birth and a few days after, but thats all.

Where we work, they gave DP those two days as paid leave, it's not like it is the whole day anyway

It's crap unless they are going to raise the amount you get paid by the State while on leave.

There is no way we could survive without my husband's full income as opposed to surviving without mine when I went on leave. Like it or not, in most houses men make more money and so dropping them down to, what? £500 a month? Whatever it is does not make it possible for men to take Leave.

Sorry. But it doesn't.

It also doesn't affect me as I'm done having children. But I think this whole thing is just lip service to equal rights.

In general a good move, in that a reform of parental leave is required, particularly when you compare the UK to other countries (obviously not the US of course). As they stand however, the proposed changes will result in women being forced back to work only two weeks after giving birth which is completely unacceptable. The mother may not be physically able to return to work but may feel she has to, for example in a small company, and childcare for a two-week-old baby will be hard to find.

Yes, brilliant. Because we all know how fit for work you are two weeks post-partum, and men are so brilliant at lactating...... Oh wait, no.

I am at anyone even suggesting returning to work 14 days after giving birth, your body isn't healed for a good 4-8 weeks, and to suggest it is to make it sound like we should be able to do it, like it's a desirable thing. For a govt that's claiming to support breastfeeding and promoting increases in breastfeeding rates this shoots it in the foot. Sharing parental leave yes, nice idea, but lots of this proposal is seriously flawed and needs a big rethink.