Holiday allowance for maternity leave

[Josiejo12]

So where I work the holidays run from beginning of April-end of March. My baby is due in July. When reading the maternity policy I thought it said you must use your holiday, if you don't you lose it and I'm sure I've read somewhere that you accrue holiday as usual when on maternity leave. Does this mean that I would need to use my year's allowance by July? My manager has said that they need to work out my holiday allowance based on April, may and June so now I'm a bit confused and want to get my facts straight before I meet with them.
Has anyone got any ideas on how it all works? It's all new to me!

Speak to someone in your HR department.

You're entitled to full holiday allowance and dont let them tell you any different. I've got 0 holidays left in this year's but when I go on maternity end of this month come April I get my 20 days plus bank holidays again so when I go back to work in Jan they've told me I will have my 20 days to take before end of march next year :)

You are entitled to all your holiday allowance, you accrue all your annual leave.

Mine works Jan-Dec and I leave in March so I am taking all my days before I leave in March.

So yes you would need to use all holiday before July, don't let them tell you any different!

You are entitled to your full holiday allowance I'm due in June and using my 5 weeks holidays then start my maternity leave

I thought the exact same to you as mines Jan-dec and going on maternity in April. A colleague tried to tell me I need to take all my holiday before I go on maternity. Even though you cant take holiday and be paid SMP at the same time.

Complete and utter rubbish and I found the below link to shut my work up. Hope it helps!

www.citizensadvice.org.uk/work/rights-at-work/parental-rights/rights-while-youre-on-maternity-leave/

I worked for sainsburys and they refused to let me take mine before I went on maternity (I was ill and ended up being forced to take mat leave early), said I hadn't accrued it at that point. They made me carry it over to the next year.

Just to add it states you should be able to carry over 5.6 weeks over into a new holiday year because you are on maternity. So you shouldn't have to take the whole lot before you go.
I didnt want to take any more than a weeks holiday before smp starts as it spreads out the money, weeks holiday, smp for the 39 weeks then few weeks unpaid and end with the rest of my holiday allowance. Otherwise I would have quite a few months with no money.

The people I know had to use that years holiday and did accrue it at the normal rate, so ended up having a few weeks off prior to maternity leave, then a few weeks of annual leave on the other side of maternity leave before going back.

You can usually choose to be paid the money instead if you don't want to take it. I don't know if that is the law but that's what they offer where I work.

Congrats on the baby xx

Thanks everyone for confirming what I initially thought, I feel more confident now knowing my rights! I'm going to call HR tomorrow and get the specifics so that when I meet with my manager I can tell them that I've spoken to HR.
Thanks again everyone