I've been made redundant - partners paternity rights?

[user1494252270]

Hi there,
I'm 14 weeks pregnant but being made redundant by week 20. So without a job I won't get maternity leave. How does this affect my partner taking shared parental leave? We both have wanted to be off together for the first three months. Does anyone have any advice on this? Government website is super confusing!

Don't think you can as you need to cut your maternity leave short in order to free up time for your partner to take shared leave. If you don't have maternity leave to take then you can't cut it short to give to him

Will you qualify for maternity allowance?

I have a lot to look into that's for sure. I won't get any maternity benefits from my job. I'm not sure what maternity allowance is. One to google this evening!

www.gov.uk/maternity-allowance/eligibility

Does your employer know you're pregnant? It's illegal for them to discriminate against you because of your pregnancy, so they would need a very good reason to make you redundant.

Maternity Action has useful info on their website about your rights at work as well as rights to maternity / paternity / parental leave and pay. I think they might have a helpline too.

You will be entitled to Maternity Allowance, which is the same amount that you'd get on SMP anyway, apart from the first 6 weeks when SMP is higher (90% of your salary).

When your job finishes you could claim an out-of-work benefit, not sure off the top of my head which would be best to claim (JSA/ESA/Income Support) - I suggest you visit or call Citizens Advice for confirmation about benefit eligibility during and after pregnancy.

Depending on your household income, you might be entitled to Child Tax Credits after the baby is born.

Thanks everyone for the helpful advice. It means a lot. I'll check out maternity action too.

See ur in box I've pm'd you

I’m only eligible for Maternity Allowance (just redundant now, at 15w) and we’ve been told that DH can take shared parental leave, no problem. I couldn’t find the info on gov.uk but after asking on here we checked with DH’s HR team (civil service).

The only thing I can’t work out, which you may have come across too, is that I’m not sure if SPL can run alongside MA like it can with SMP. So allowing you to be off together, as you can with SMP. This is because MA can not be stopped and restarted.

Sorry, didn’t realise how old this thread was!