Starting a small self employed business from home while on mat leave

[eeyore12]

Hi I am currently 3 months into 9 months mat leave from my employed job. I am looking to start running baby massage classes again and make wedding invitations/birth announcements from home sooner rather than later. Can I do this while on mat leave ob I will need to re register as self employed (stopped being when current job meant I could no longer run classes) I don't intend on returning to said job when the 9 months is up so would hopefully continue being both employed (in another post) and self employed on the side for a good while yet.

Or would me doing this while on mat leave mean my maternity pay would need to be stopped? In which case I will have to wait till it runs out before starting these ventures up.

Thanks

You can work in self-employment and it will not affect your SMP, but there may be conditions of your maternity leave placed on you by your employer(s) (these cannot affect SMP or your right to return to work though).

Thanks mr a there is nothing in my contract about doing other work outside of my nanny job so I would assume the same would apply while on mat leave. I won't be returning as a: my hours are changing and b: they have basically said they would rather keep my cover, so I don't want to return somewhere where I know they would rather have someone else do the job.

It won't affect you whilst on mat leave but as we found out with my dh who was s/e and employed, he paid a lot of tax which meant one job he was doing for no profit.