Paternity Leave / Pay

[kyles101]

I hope you can help... am I reading the statutory paternity pay / leave correctly that it can only be given / paid if the partner was pregnant before the employee took the position? It reads must be continually employed for 26 weeks before the qualifying week (15th week before due date). So by default if partner was pregnant when the employee started they wouldn't qualify?

This seems unfair?

Yes that’s correct. Statutory maternity pay is subject to the same length of service criteria (although maternity leave applies regardless of length of service for obvious reasons).

Employees who haven’t been employed long enough to qualify for paternity leave usually take annual leave or unpaid leave.

Thanks for the reply, that's a shame. I think we'll offer him 2 weeks and match the rate, we would have topped it up a little if we could have claimed back the statutory part.