Maternity & holiday pay

[seoladair]

Any employment lawyers out there? Advice needed!
Can my 26 weeks of employment running up to the qualifying week for Statutory Maternity Pay be interrupted by a holiday if the employer has been operating a system of rolled-up holiday pay? (I know rolled-up holiday pay has been unlawful since 2006 if the holiday pay is not spelt out in the payslips or contract.)
HMRC will still give the thumbs-up for SMP if paid holiday is taken within the 26 week period.
My question is this: can my holiday be regarded as paid if I was not paid for that week, due to the rolled-up holiday pay system?

What a mess! Have you asked HMRC?

The point is not whether your holiday was paid or unpaid, it is whether your employment continued during the holiday period. I am not an expert in this area, but it is my understanding that if you work for the same organisation that is your employer then your employment will be continuous, but if you are an agency worker it will not.

More details are available in leaflet N17A.

In the first instance the decision as to whether you qualify is your employer's: have you told them you intend to take maternity leave and given them the MATB1 yet?

Yes, I'm on leave now and submitted MatB1 ages ago.
Thanks for the link - I work as an academic in higher education, but sadly the higher education sector relies heavily on so-called "casual" labour, and defines many regular workers in this way.
It was useful to see this in the leaflet you linked to:

Broken employment..can be continuous if... "you are away in circumstances in which, by arrangement or custom, your employment is regarded as continuing for some purposes (for example, if you are a teacher employed on term-by-term contracts with the same or associated employers)"

I returned to my usual regular timetable the week after the holiday,so I guess by arrangement or custom my employment was continuing.