Labour would double paternity leave, and raise it to £260 a week - what do you think?

[KateMumsnet]

Hello all

Labour has announced plans for a "Father's Month" which will double paid paternity leave from two to four weeks. They've also pledged to raise paternity pay by more than £100 per week to at least £260 a week - equivalent to the minimum wage.

Do tell us what you think - are these changes to be welcomed? How, if at all, would they have affected your family's experience in the first few weeks with a newborn?

Honeybadger the current Tory/libdem government brought in the CSA change.
Labour are simply proposing 1 policy they would like to bring in.
These things aren't really related! I completely agree the CSA should not have gone private but that's what Tories do! This policy proposal by labour is unrelated.

I'm expecting DC3 this summer, and there's no way we could survive on 260 a week paternity, for the same reason I'll be going back to work early because we couldn't survive on 130 a week maternity

it isn't unrelated - they are announcing it without announcing a reversal of the csa decision or a correlated announcement that they will back the criminalisation of evasion of maintenance for example. they are rolling out a right without any addressing of the complete absence of sanctions or enforcing of any form of responsibility and devastating effects of that upon women and children and the knock on effects upon the wider economy.

are they unaware of these factors? one would hope not. do they assume the average voter only looks at policies in a vacuum of selectivity as to how they effect them individually? presumably so.

this is mumsnet of course, predominantly posted on by female parents so presumably we look at most policies through that lens and how they effect, speak to or of female parenting and what they say of a parties attitude towards women, children and economic equality and justice for women and children.

what this one says is plenty.

Labour electioneering aside, I can't believe how many Victorian, cold & sexist attitudes are present on this thread.

I am a dad, I took two weeks statutory paid paternity leave whether my employer liked it or not (they coped fine), it was probably the best two weeks of my life, wife was very happy that I was there to support and enjoy those first weeks with our little one. It is bad enough that most of us are 9-5 wage slaves with just 4 weeks paid holiday a year, so why wouldn't any father want to have some additional time off to spend with their new child?

I agree that the option should be there to have more than two weeks off, and an increase in statutory pay should make it financially easier for Dads to take it up.

That said, we made sure that our finances were ok enough not to be affected by a whole two weeks of reduced pay, you have at least nine months to plan for this!

Anyone who cries that men would be getting paid more than women has missed the point entirely, or forgotten the 12 month sliding scale of maternity pay - do your sums.

Employers, and the government, can afford it. It would be an additional two weeks pay, let's say 2-3 times in a 45 year working lifetime - big deal!

HoneyBadger I read it as a female friendly policy that promotes responsibility rather than rights for fathers, however, your arguments are very compelling. I still support this policy but take your point that addressing the CSA issues is more important and more helpful to families. The ideal would be to do both and to address the social attitudes that view fatherhood as optional wrt taking responsibility and stamp out these ideas that fathers are an irritating inconvenience with a newborn.

Hello

Just wanted to follow up on a few points and explain why we took the position we did when the media came a-calling

We did this survey in late 2014 of around 1000 Mners. 80% of respondents told us that they wished their husbands/spouses could have taken more paternity leave, and 70% of those told us that one of the major reasons they didn't was that the rates of pay were too low. 90% of respondents thought that statutory paternity leave rates should match maternity leave rates. So based on that, our approach yesterday was broadly to say that we think more money going into paternity leave pay has to be a good thing.

We've also done quite a lot of survey work with MNers on 'choreology' and the division of household tasks, and again and again you tell us that mothers still bear much more of the weight for household work than fathers do, even when both partners work out of the home. There's quite a lot of research showing that men who get involved in caring for their children very early on tend to stay involved, bearing a fairer share of the burden of childcare and child-related work later on in the child's life.

If you didn't respond to the survey on paternity pay, don't worry - we'll very soon be launching a big survey asking all MNers what they think about all sorts of policy issues in the run-up to the general election, and this topic (and CSA charges!) will be included in that.

JellyDinosaurs i'm pleased that you've taken the point on board. i too would be happy enough if it was both and ok with it just being the responsibility first. this without the responsibilities being addressed and backed by the state and it's institutions still is an awful message in my mind and a real slap in the face for the women and children struggling under the weight of a) lack of paternal responsibility b) the punishment and stigma dolled out to them by society for that and c) the lack of will to do anything to enforce that responsibility and in fact the increasing punishment upon them in the form of charging them to even be able to try and get any maintenance.

I think the point still stands that where as many (most?) people can think "Yes, it would be nice if......." that's very different from thinking "That's a good thing to spend public money on, when public money is in short supply".
That's the key.

Here's your chance to tell us exactly what you think - do please have a look (be warned, it's quite long!)

Thanks
MNHQ

What about reducing maternity pay?

Have both Mother and Father 4 weeks full pay?

To be frank I get fed up with "research" being spouted on here as the reason for everything. "Research" is often discredited and if you dig enough you can find something to back up anything. Could we have some links please although surely common sense would tell anybody that two weeks extra paternity will not a good dad make.Some will just spend it in the pub,some might simply work from home and some might do what they'd do anyway ie be a hands on dad.

As a mum of boys I'm also starting to get a little fed up with the MN anti men stance that seems to crop up at any given time.There are hoards of good dads out there and they don't need two weeks extra off work when we can't afford it to make them that way.It's more than a little patronising to infer they do.I had 3 under 15 months and my dp did pretty much all the nights often single handed to give me a break.Pretty sure my boys will be just as fab.Said dp only had his two weeks of holiday entitlement off.

I find MN often decides what it wants to say and carries on regardless of other opinions.Getting a bit tired of MN speaking for me and proclaiming views I don't actually have.Is it entirely necessary? If individuals in HQ have certain views can they not proclaim them in their own name instead of speaking for the whole of MN?

Sorry to be so negative but with an election coming up I really don't fancy more of the same.

Also not entirely sure what the point of the op was.You asked a question,it got answered,you chose to ignore the overwhelming answer.

"they don't need two weeks extra off work...." how about men having option to decide for themselves what they want/need?

It's pretty miserable being stuck back at work full time when your newborn child is at home, while you're confined to the standard 9-5 wage slave/rat race hours & basic holidays.

I'm not sure there was an overwhelming answer, the question was directed at 'all'.

Sorry but men needing two extra weeks off work to make them good fathers,seriously?

Most of the answers on threads re this issue didn't think funding this when there are more pressing issues is a good idea,I call that pretty overwhelming.

It strikes me as discriminating against the self-employed. How many people who work on their own can afford to take time off.

It's nothing to do with making them good fathers. It's about enjoying time with your family imo, time is limited.

Surely being self employed is a personal choice, it usually pays a lot better with less tax, enough to cover things like pensions and time off.

No one is suggesting men need a month off to make them good fathers though I think that's been inferred from my post earlier which was perhaps clumsily phrased. I was discussing the social attitudes towards fatherhood such as the women who came on this thread to say they couldn't wait for their partners to return to work because they 'got under their feet', were only useful for doing DIY, couldn't be spared from their jobs because they are too important and were no help with a new born anyway. Those posts reinforce the idea that men are incompetent domestically whilst women are naturally suited to running a house and caring for children and that men are indispensable professionally whilst women can take nine months off work because they're less important in the workplace.

My point was that if it became the norm for men to take a month off then perhaps it would become more accepted that men actually are competent and caring fathers and that their contribution to a home goes well beyond simply bringing in the money and doing a bit of DIY. Many of us are well aware of this already and have explained how our partners took equal responsibility from the start regardless of how much paternity leave they took. But I think it would be good if employers got used to the fact that men will take time off for their families, that this isn't just a female responsibility and if the people holding these antiquated views about men's domestic ineptitude were challenged as well. That was the point I tried to make, not that men need bribing with time off work to take an interest in parenting.

I was all for this idea but based on the responses on this thread maybe a better idea would be for health visitors or gps to be able to refer people for extra paternity leave. I'm amazed at the people who found dh under their feet. With twins, one with severe reflux and other health needs, who's feeding routine meant I was up hourly every night and who had 'colic' dh being at home saved my sanity. Luckily his work had let him save holiday up. We were in hospital for five days so if he'd only had two weeks that would have left 9 days. Or what about where the mum has severe Pnd and dad is the main carer?

As the daughter of a dad who did everything to avoid paying csa I feel strongly that this needs sorting out. However I fail to see why what my husband is entitled to should be affected by that. He's not responsible for the actions of all men.

What JellyDinosaurs said. The assumptions that a father "cannot be spared" from their job, will be "underfoot", spend time in the pub etc are obnoxious, and no reason to deprive good fathers of those precious first weeks. As pp pointed out, when mother or baby needs to spend additional time in hospital 2 weeks gets eaten into pretty fast, and many mothers need the extra support at home.

Re: self-employed - depends what setup you have. If you run your own Ltd co, and take a salary, you are eligible to pay yourself parental leave & claim it all back.

But fathers get the first few weeks and can have extra by using holiday.

Sorry in a time of austerity funding two off work for longer is ludicrous and as much as I love my dp,even after 23 years together spending a month together twiddling our thumbs would drive us crazy.It's one tiny baby.

And frankly inferring all fathers would spend the entire month gazing into their newborn's eyes is ridiculous.Men differ,as do women. Jobs differ,circumstances differ,personalities differ.Fatherhood is for life not just the first month and suggesting a month off equals a future good father is just bonkers.

In an ideal world I'm sure the state paying for two to be off work for a month would be lovely but we can't afford an ideal world which labour still don't seem to get. Their lack of reality as regards the economy really hacks me off as it just makes them unable to vote for.God only knows what other costly idealist schemes they'd have up their sleeves if they got in come next election. We'd end up back to square one in a nanosecond.

Wouldn't it be more prudent to make it mandatory that fathers should have the choice re taking holiday in a block to go with what they do have as a family?

'......extra by using holiday' it's not extra though, its using the standard miserable entitlement.

'Men differ/circumstances differ....' well let people have the choice? if they don't want to take it, they can stay at working earning full money and saving the state a little bit.

I'd point out, as with the current entitlement, the time could be taken a week at a time, spread out if necessary/preferred, it wouldn't have to be a month in one go.

Lepetit, you say 'Austerity', but the current government can always find money to hand out for projects etc. one small example recently £80million for a new theatre in Manchester City Centre, nice but not exactly essential. £375 billion of Quantitative easing... there's plenty of money in the system even if it is virtual.

When we had DS2 in 2011 DH was actually better off on SPP than at work as he earned barely more than NMW and had considerable travel costs, which were obviously eliminated by him not being in. I was the main earner and had to go back at 6 months because our savings ran out. So, it depends on your situation whether this is good or not. For us, it would have been.