To think maternity pay should also increase with inflation

[Frida9]

I am due to go on maternity leave from January, when I first found out I was pregnant I wanted to take a years maternity leave. With the extortionate cost of living increase I'll now be doing 6 months at most (I'm public sector so get 6 weeks full pay followed by half pay) and I know I'm one of the lucky ones. If I was just getting SMP I'd be back at work 6 weeks after giving birth.
I'm not on minimum wage and don't live in an expensive area but I will really struggle on maternity leave. Why is maternity pay not increasing along with benefits and pensions? I know I'll get the "you chose to have kids" argument but if we didn't have kids there would be no one working to pay for these benefit and pension increases.

Martin Lewis seems to be saying it should go up as it usually follows suit. Fingers crossed!

Can you fudge your AL a bit? Take you remaining leave for this year before starting your ML, then your ML + another couple of weeks and you get an extra month of full pay.

Remember that it's ½ pay plus SMP. When I was a nurse, ½ pay + SMP took me almost up to full pay.

8 weeks *‘full pay’ including Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP)
18 weeks 'half pay', plus SMP (except if
this will exceed ‘full pay’)
13 weeks SMP
13 weeks unpaid.

This should be your entitlement if you have more than 12 months service with the NHS.

I had two maternity leaves on.the NHS they are a damn site better than what alot of companies offer women, unfortunatley when the NHS maternity entitlement ran out i couldn,t afford to go down to just SMP either

No UC doesn't disregard any smp but smp is treated the same way as earnings so if oyu have a child you receive a work allowance meaning that a proportion of earnings is disregarded before earnings reduce you total UC entitlement. The amount disregarded depends whether you receive help with rent or not. The amount disregarded is higher for those with a mortgage which is where Uc helps those that don't get a rent element on the claim.

That very much depends on where she lives. We didn't have a car when DD was small - but there were plenty of things to do in our village, and buses to get into town. (Bus with a little one has some advantages over car - you can feed them en route if necessary, and you can be face-to-face with them while you travel instead of them being in the back of the car facing away from you with no contact.)

thars for nurses @Lougle , Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) is paid for up to 39 weeks. You get:

90% of your average weekly earnings (before tax) for the first 6 weeks
£156.66 or 90% of your average weekly earnings (whichever is lower) for the next 33 weeks

That's for NHS staff. The OP is NHS admin.

As @Lougle said the Op is NHS albeit admin so is subject to agenda for change and will have the same maternity rights as all NHS staff.