27 October 2005
The Government has recently published the new Work and Families Bill (the Bill), as well as its response to the consultation on the same.
The Bill proposes a number of important new rights. However, in its response to the consultation, the Government has been at pains to emphasise that it is trying to balance the needs of families and young children with the needs of business. Although many of the family-friendly proposals will necessarily have a cost to business. To make the changes more palatable to businesses and business groups, the Government has been trying to identify ways of making existing and new rights easier to administer.
One theme the Government has taken up is the need to improve communication between women on maternity leave and their employers, in the hope that this will encourage more women to return to work after maternity leave. To this end, the Government will:
- Clarify what level of communication with an employee on maternity leave is acceptable, as consultation has revealed that many employers do not communicate effectively during maternity leave owing to uncertainty about employers’ rights in this area
- Introduce ‘keeping in touch days’, which will allow women on maternity leave to work for a few days without losing the right to maternity leave or pay
- Linked to communication, businesses will also be pleased that the notice of early return, which must be given by women on maternity leave, is to be increased from twenty-eight days to eight weeks. This should allow businesses to manage their staffing levels more easily.
For employees, perhaps the most eye-catching proposals are to:
- Extend Statutory Maternity Pay and Maternity Allowance to nine months from April 2007
- Introduce a power to extend fathers’ rights to paternity leave
- Extend the right to request flexible working to carers from April 2007
As regards fathers’ rights to paternity leave, there is to be further consultation. However, the current indications are that the first six months maternity leave will not be transferable, but that the second six months, or part of that second six month period, will be transferable by the mother to the father. The Government is reluctant to make any part of the first six months leave transferable, as this period is considered important for the wellbeing of the mother and her child. Six months is also the minimum period recommended by the World Health Organisation for breastfeeding.
Reaction to the Bill has been mixed. The CBI Deputy Director-General John Cridland said:
"Businesses were willing to support the Government's plans to extend maternity and flexible working rights provided that the inevitable administrative burden was shared. But today's announcement introduces an unexpected new right for fathers and leaves employers guessing as to whether they will be able to hand back to the Government the burden of administering maternity pay."
TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: 'This Bill is another significant step along the road to making work family friendly. It's good news for today’s and tomorrow's working parents. Many of its provisions have been won after long union campaigns. New mothers will get another three months' paid leave, and the law is beginning to recognise that modern fathers also want to play a proper role in caring for their children."