Childcare vouchers, maternity leave & new maternity leave policy

[TinyPenguin]

I am a member of the childcare voucher scheme at my place of work. However haven't been buying any vouchers for a while. I am due to start maternity leave mid march & want to start now to buy £243 vouchers a month. I know this means that when I'm on SMP my employer, legally, should foot the expense as it cannot be deducted from SMP.
However.....
A recently revised edition of the maternity leave policy (amended Jan 2014) has popped up on the intranet, stating that during mat leave childcare vouchers will not be paid during SMP.....
Surely this is discrimination?
Have I got a case to argue?
Any advice much appreciated as I don't want to get to my SMP months & be 'surprised' to find my vouchers are no longer being paid.
Thank you.

I think its usually a salary sacrifice scheme which means it does come out of your 'salary' (not smp). I don't expect your employer will be buying you vouchers as goodwill.

Sorry, also, its not a benefit, in the same way as healthcare or company car which would continue while on smp.

This might help

www.hmrc.gov.uk/employers/sml-salary-sacrifice.pdf

As far as I'm aware your employer must still provide these while you're on mat leave. I was forced to leave my voucher scheme when pg with dd2 - I read a thread on here that pointed me to the above link, I spoke to HR, they put me back in the scheme and my vouchers were paid.

Good luck.

www.hmrc.gov.uk/employers/sml-salary-sacrifice.pdf

Hopefully this one is clicky

I thought that I read that you had to be receiving the vouchers during your qualifying period and then they had to continue, I'm not sure if it applies when you haven't been buying them and want to restart. If you post in employment matters the nice HR/legal bods will be able to tell you.