Equal Parenthood Leave and Pay

[WorkingNightsMama]

Hello everyone, this is a bit of a long one - but please bare with me!

I work for a large company within the UK, and found out I was pregnant with my second child in January 2021. At that time, I didn't qualify for the companies enhanced Maternity pay as I had not been with the company long enough. However, around March/April time they announced that they would be changing their policy. They said it would be introduced in the Autumn time (great, my baby was due in September...the beginning of Autumn!) and was changing to include any person becoming a parent, who had worked for the company for at least a year would get this new enhanced package.

They announced that this would come into effect from November 1st - alas, I did not make the cut. However, I have just returned from my Mat leave and have looked into this policy further...it states that the birth mother's equal parenthood leave must start on the due date, but the co-parents can start 42 days following the birth.

Is this fair? If I was the co-parent and delayed the start date by 42 days, I would have qualified for the new policy. Can I go back and claim this enhanced maternity pay on the basis they are discriminating against the birth vs the co-parent?

Thanks everyone!

Hi, assume you already got the answer to this from your employer. But I’m interested in the topic so here’s my answer…

Statutory law says the person who gives birth must start their leave on that day or the day after. Paternity may start within 6 weeks. Your employer is just linking this to the existing statutory provisions so you are not being discriminated against.

And the co parent’s eligibility for enhanced will be based on the due date NOT the date they want to start the leave. Your employer would not have overlooked this when building the policy.

^This

Yes, it is not discrimination because the employer has no option under UK law to start maternity leave at any other time.