Holiday entitlement / maternity leave question

[AmeliaEarhart]

Hi. I hope someone can help me with this. My baby is due in early November and I'm planning to take all 52 weeks of my maternity leave, probably starting on November 1st. My question is, am I entitled to take all my holiday days before this? I'm supposed to have 24 days this year (holidays run Jan-Jan), but when I checked with the HR chap at work this morning, he told me I only have 20 days now because I won't be here for the full year. From what I can see on various websites (directgov etc.) this is wrong and I'm entitled to take all 24 days before my leave starts. Can anyone confirm this is correct before I mention it to my boss? Thanks!

There's no law about when you can take holiday, that's down to your employer's policy. You are entitled to accrue holiday for the entire duration of your maternity leave, but that doesn't mean you get to choose to take it all beforehand.

So before the end of December, this holiday year, you will accrue your normal holiday entitlement. You should take it all before you go on maternity leave so that you don't lose any of it, although your employer may allow some of it to be carried over to next year.

Thanks flowerybeanbag. HR chap was suggesting that I will lose 4 days (wouldn't be entitled to take them at all) as I won't be working for the last 2 months of the year, which didn't sound right to me.

No you continue to accrue holiday as normal. Your HR guy's employment law knowledge is several years out of date, which is quite worrying in itself.

Just as an aside the statutory minimum holiday entitlement is 5.6 weeks, which is 28 days for people working 5 days a week. That can include bank holidays but just thought I'd better mention in case his knowledge is out of date on that as well....

It is quite worrying, isn't it? Especially as I'll be the 4th person at the company to take maternity leave this year! I'll be sure to set him straight tomorrow. Thanks again for your advice.