Under plans for parental leave to be shared between mothers and fathers, new fathers could get nearly 12 months of leave after the birth of their baby, which could start just two weeks after the baby is born, if the mother decides to return to work.
The Government will announce its new flexible parental leave scheme later this month to honour its promise made in the Coalition Agreement in 2010, although it is unlikely that the system will be introduced before 2015 because of a disagreement in the Cabinet over the impact the scheme will have on businesses.
Last month the British Chambers of Commerce said that it supported the objective of helping mothers return to work, but has “yet to see proposals on flexible parental leave that are workable”.
In the original consultation, ministers outlined plans to reserve 18 weeks of paid leave to mothers around the birth of the child, with a further 30 weeks available to be shared between both parents, 17 of which would be paid.
However, according to a report in the Daily Telegraph, if the mother is the main breadwinner, then after the first two weeks of the baby’s life, any remaining leave would be available to either parent.
420,000 families every year could benefit from the proposal, but estimates from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) predicted that only up to 13,500 couples would find it economically beneficial to switch the allowance from mother to father.
The BIS has also had to conduct a feasibility study on how it will police the payment to ensure parents do not claim simultaneously and will have to build a new IT system that is expected to cost £22 million.