Maternity pay has gone too far

[EasterIssland]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c781m9v4255o

apologies if there is another thread about it.
havent seen one.

im lucky enough to have a good salary that would allow me saving beforehand . Statutory maternity pay would mean around 20-30% of my salary. Is this too far? It’s one of the many reasons why we decided to only have one. I felt really vulnerable when I was on maternity leave and didn’t feel I kept having spare cash every month. I do understand what she means tho , the sooner we’re back the less we get from the government and more taxes we pay. Coming from a woman hurts even more not being recognised the sacrifices we do whilst we are on maternity leave

The lack of childcare was a major factor.

@TiredCatLady bravo. They can delete this one too if they please.

to me it’s a bit like the pub decline

tbe accounts screwed over the licences fir more ad more rent and profit, they left and could get anyone to take the pubs on. So they close and become flats or houses. The brewery’s are selling less and less beer as the pubs keep closing- eventually the penny will drop that through there own greed they’ve killed their business

same with woman, they don’t want to spend on maternity service, maternity pay and will wonder why the birth rate will continue to drop. Greedy shortsighted plonkers

There are both left and right leaning countries offering better maternity pay and rights than the U.K. Sweden being an example of a left leaning country. I knew someone would come back on my post and equate Hungary being bad because of its leader. Rather than consider that maybe they value women and families more than any U.K. politicians do. Why can’t we just look at the offering other countries have and demand better rather than tie ourselves in knots about the politics of that country?

For the record, I’m currently childless but I fully support at least full year of maternity pay (above SMP because it’s pathetically low) and further childcare support for all. I do not think having a child should mean placing yourself in a financially precarious position when you’ve been paying tax and NI for two decades in some cases (or not at all - it should not be means or contribution based, children are needed). KBs backtrack actually makes it worse. I’m sure she’d let new mothers starve given her statement on “cultures”.

It's completely bizarre statement and sadly shows the view of some businesses and her.
To get SMP you have to have worked to qualify so it's very bizarre to say tax payers are paying for it....

I'm not sure which Tory MPs she is aiming at frankly I don't care but stupid statements like this put maternity and paternity issues against further barriers they don't need and harps back to the 1950s!

Not to downplay this everyone but if she's saying this now then what else has she got planned if she were to ever hypothetically lead the tories back into government?

Imagine what else she's got in her backpocket that she's not telling us...

Badenoch said statutory maternity pay, set up to support mothers for 39 weeks after having a baby, is a "function of tax" which she called "excessive".

I would agree - it's a purely economic decision endorsed by whatever government is in power, without any reference to the emotional importance of 'family' - mothers (and fathers) wanting to bring up their children and how important bonding is in the early years.

She added that "the exact amount of maternity pay in my view is neither here nor there", adding: “We need to have more personal responsibility - there was a time when there wasn’t any maternity pay and people were having more babies."

Again I can agree to a certain extent. But, this was possibly when women were expected to be the default 'stay-at-home' parent?

If this was to be treated as and paid as a 'proper job'. with employment and pension rights would it solve the problem?

Or would people have more children because it was an 'easy' opton paid for by state funding?

(having said that - and I'm going to be absolutely flamed for saying this! #donsveryhardhatandhides! - so many public sector jobs are paid for by state funding anyway and they have privileges / pensions/ salaries which are far better than private sector jobs .......

But, how do we balance the needs of people when they want to start a family - which the country needs for continuing economic viability - vs the needs of business to have a workforce which is present and actively working,

She later said she had been "misrepresented", and she was making a wider comment about cutting regulatory burdens on business.

How do we fairly balance the needs of children and the needs of family vs the needs of a viable standard of living for individuals and families vs the economic vialbility of the country vs the needs of businesses who need to operate without bringing in expensive deputy / agency staff?

In the end, what it boils down to is: the country needs more taxation revenue -

which means we need people in work.

I'm not sure what the answer is ............... ?

I know the world today is a far more materialistic sociey than in previous times.

And I'm not sure what that says about our current values and what we consider to be important

Child benefit isn't limited to 2 children?

She's an awful woman with awful opinions. No surprises here!

I never did manage to express successfully. Only the odd floz here and there.

Maternity pay has gone too far, says Badenoch.

Badenoch was not depending on maternity pay to put food on the table. She clearly despises less well-off women who are dependent on maternity pay to survive after having a baby.

Make sure next time you vote for the Tories because they want the best for the working people.

In a majority of Eastern European countries, maternity pay is for two years. In the first year, I believe the pay is 90% of your salary, and in the second year, it is 75%. And taking into consideration that these countries are much less well off than the UK. Lovely tories.

our birth rates are declining. Add to that the data that a third of women are childless, but only 5% are voluntarily childless. It indicates that there is a lot wrong in our society.

It’s a good point actually. I am mid 30s and seeing this a lot in my peer group (uni educated).

Only about 15% have children. Another 25% trying but having difficulties. The others all starting to panic to various degrees. Either because they haven’t got partners yet or they don’t have career stability/ savings/ houses sorted.

It is a problem IMO. Not only because women have the ticking clock, but because a lot of the men have very unhealthy sperm. In the group who have been trying and are getting investigations it’s becoming increasingly common it’s the men who are the issue. That’s a reasonably quick fix most of the time (around 3 months I am being told). But if women are losing a couple of years to trying before even looking at this then they are they are losing 2-3 by the time the men sort their sperm.

Then there’s the issue of going for number 2. My boys 2 and a half. Less than 25% again are pregnant or have had number 2. Most holding off for the 3 year mark where free childcare is available. Again stretching out the time to being able to have 2 children and lengthening the time that women are reproducing. Causing knock ons for fertility, higher risk pregnancies and longer out of the workforce or working at lowered capacity (due to illness, tiredness, energy levels of small children from perhaps 5 years to 10 years).

Blood and boil.
It's Brexit not working mothers destroying our economy. You fuckwit.
How dare you have any opinion on the economy after 14 years of wanton destruction.

Well, she just wants little America in the UK, really, doesn’t she? If it’s good enough for America for there to be no obligation to pay anyone maternity leave, then it’s good enough for the UK. I mean, it’s not like the US is more a basket case than a paragon of virtue these days, or anything, is it? And if the birth rate is too low, we could ban abortions while we’re at it. Her world vision stinks - hard faced, uncaring, divisive and divided.

Except she didn’t actually say maternity pay has gone too far.

PigeonLady
our birth rates are declining. Add to that the data that a third of women are childless, but only 5% are voluntarily childless. It indicates that there is a lot wrong in our society.

Amd yet among my children's peer group ( I'm saying ' children' even tho they're actuallly adults!🫣) I see that there are many more who don't want children than do ............ they're in their 30s and also educated to uni level ??

Can’t be arsed to read pages about this imbecilic attention seeker. However on the basis she’s happy to publicly attribute moral clarity to Israel in that specific context as well as this I’d dread to think

No one seems to have pointed out that Badenoch was saying that there shouldn't be any statutory maternity pay at all, because firms should be able to decide whether they wanted their staff to have maternity pay. That was what she meant by "too much regulation". Obviously those who couldn't get good jobs with reputable firms would have to put up with being sacked and replaced from the dole queue when they were pregnant, as before 1948 or so.

I had my first DC in 1995 and because I hadn't been in my job for 2years, I was only entitled to 14 weeks maternity leave. I had to return to work when my baby was 12 weeks old and exclusively BF. I had a nightmare trying to get her to take a bottle and initially our childminder struggled. After a couple of weeks it was ok. SMP was £55pw.
Had another DC in 1999 and then mat leave had increased to 20 weeks if you hadn't been employed for years. Luckily this time, my MIL looked after baby as I couldn't find a childminder. I had put baby's name down for nursery when I was 3m pregnant but didn't get a space until baby was 10m old. SMP was £59pw.

I don’t agree with what kemi badenoch said either .i think if you want to curb maternity pay then you need to have better provisions for early years childcare so that women can afford to go back to work… families can’t afford Nannies or to put their young babies into nursery and it’s often unfortunately the woman who has to drop out of work.
however your statement is factually incorrect. Norway has the best maternity pay in the world and according to world bank stats, 61.8 pct female workforce participation … same as Singapore which I think only has 2 months of mat pay… there are many countries with 70 pct or better female workforce participation and they aren’t in the tranche of top maternity pay countries .. I suspect you’ll find a better correlation with places where families either get govt help for childcare or where culturally extended families help out more.. or there’s affordable foreign donestic help

Before 1994 you were not entitled to maternity leave unless you had worked for the same company for 2 years by the 25th week of pregnancy.
After then you were allowed a measly 14 weeks total leave.

@PigeonLady this is precisely where myself and a lot of my cohort are. To other posters, please don’t assume childless = by choice, even if people outwardly state as such. It’s not that simple. KB it seems would prefer to take away all MP - @TriesNotToBeCynical has hit it on the nose. Having a child? Well on the dole queue you go!

@MorganFreemansVoice In a majority of Eastern European countries, maternity pay is for two years. In the first year, I believe the pay is 90% of your salary, and in the second year, it is 75%. And taking into consideration that these countries are much less well off than the UK. Lovely tories.

And yet many people from Eastern Europe want to come and work here in the UK because salaries / benefits / living conditions are better?

Note where the UK is in the table of statutory paid maternity paid leave in weeks:

• Norway: 54
• United Kingdom: 39
• India: 26
• New Zealand: 26
• Italy: 21
• Australia: 20
• Poland: 20
• Denmark: 18
• South Africa: 17
• France: 16
• Spain: 16
• Netherlands: 16
• Canada: 15
• Germany: 14
• Japan: 14
• Switzerland: 14
• Sweden: 12
• Singapore: 12
• South Korea: 12