Maternity leave policy is only 18 weeks, surely not legal?

[ALF87]

I started a new job in Feb of this year, found out 2 weeks later I was pregnant unexpectedly.
I had read the company policy/handbook at the time but as the contract was already signed there was nothing I could do about it.
Now that it's getting closer I've got it out again to check I wasn't wrong about the maternity leave policy.

"You are entitled to an 18-week period of ordinary maternity leave irrespective of your length of service or the number of hours you work each week.
If you have at least 1 years service at the start of the 11th week before the expected week of the birth of your child you will be able to take an additional period of maternity leave and return to work at any time up until the end of 29 weeks from the Sunday before your child is actually born."

My question is, surely this isn't right? Everyone is entitled to 52 weeks of leave irrespective of how long they have been employed?
This isn't about maternity pay, I understand I will only be entitled to SMP (although again it says I can only have SMP for the 18 weeks which again I don't think is legal)

Can anyone shed some light on this?
Regardless, I'll be taking off as much time as I feel I need, hopefully the year depending on our finances, but I just wanted to see if I'm right on this matter before I go storming up to HR to complain.

I work in HR. You are correct, all employees are entitled to 26 weeks ordinary maternity leave, plus 26 weeks additional maternity leave, totaling 52 weeks, regardless of how long you have worked there (and as you note pay is different). This entitlement applies to everyone, unless you are classed as a "worker" (where you work for an agency or zero hour contract etc.).

The bit you have quoted from the company talks about hours worked - you aren't classed as a worker on zero hours etc?

https://www.gov.uk/employers-maternity-pay-leave#:~:text=Eligible%20employees%20can%20take%20up,the%20baby%20is%20born%20early.

was that handbook from 1998? 🙄

it’s been a long time since I was pregnant but as you haven’t been there very long it may be that you claim maternity allowance instead of SMP but the time off allowed shouldn’t change. Very dodgy.

@Sagittarius25 no, I'm a full-time, salaried worker, contracted to 37.5 hours.

And yes, pay is different, but I do qualify for SMP, but again it says SMP only payable for those 18 weeks?

I'm an acccountant who would have reviewed/been trained in payroll before, so probably more aware than a normal employee of entitlements around leave/pay, so maybe it hasn't been questioned before?

@mmmmmchocolate I'm wondering if perhaps the handbook is outdated, everyone else who has been pregnant has qualified for their additional leave, and therefore hasn't had to question it. It just seems strange to have something so wrong in a company handbook!

Then you qualify for up to 52 weeks leave and up to 39 weeks SMP.

I would go an query with HR immediately, quoting info on Gov pages if necessary, it's not exactly hard to find so they should have an explanation as to why their handbook is incorrectly stating something else.

@Sagittarius25 that's what I thought, just wanted someone to agree with me before I made an idiot of myself with HR, thanks for replying :)