Open call for evidence

Parental leave and pay review: call for evidence

Updated 3 July 2025

Applies to England, Scotland and Wales

Introduction

The parental leave and pay review is a much-needed opportunity to explore and consider how the parental leave and pay system could better support working families, reflect the modern economy, and deliver on the government’s Plan for Change and missions.  

We are seeking evidence and views to inform the work of the review. We are also using it as an opportunity to provide further background on the review, including a summary of the current entitlements and existing evidence base.

We are aiming to set out and test the objectives for the parental leave and pay system^{[footnote 1]}, and to seek input and evidence to further our understanding of the impacts of the current system.

Current parental leave and pay entitlements

The ‘system’ of existing parental leave and pay entitlements has grown incrementally over time. Family life has changed radically since the 1970s when the Employment Protection Act 1975 was passed, which established the right to maternity leave for some working women.

Subsequent additions have provided fathers, adopters, parental order parents and parents in other more specific situations with statutory rights to take time off work to care for their children and receive pay while doing so in some cases.

This has created a complex framework of employment and social security legislation – with parental leave and pay entitlements that were never designed to operate as a single system. Instead, entitlements were developed to support individual groups, as needs emerged.

This means an overarching set of objectives for the system has not been articulated before. The foundation of the current system is to deliver health and safety protections to women in relation to pregnancy and post-partum. This is still the fundamental objective of the parental leave and pay system – but to reflect modern life and work, there are other objectives that the system could support to deliver for working families more widely.

The review will consider the current suite of existing and upcoming leave and pay entitlements that make up our current system, including:

• maternity leave and pay
• paternity leave and pay
• adoption leave and pay
• shared parental leave and pay
• parental bereavement leave and pay
• parental leave (unpaid)
• neonatal care leave and pay
• Maternity Allowance
• a new employment right, currently under development – bereaved partner’s paternity leave (unpaid)

Summary of current entitlements

As a starting point for the work of the review, we will consider the current entitlements – looking at the individual strengths and weaknesses of each, as well as wider issues and themes.

A summary of the current entitlements, including statistics from our current evidence base, is set out in this document^{[footnote 2]}. A more comprehensive overview of our existing evidence base has been included as an annex to this document^{[footnote 3]}.

We will continue to expand our evidence base during the review with input from the public, academics, other government departments and stakeholders.

The evidence, with the exception of the HMRC data, precedes the 2024 introduction of changes to paternity leave and pay and the 2025 introduction of neonatal care leave and pay. Paternity leave and pay is now available for 2 non-consecutive weeks within a 52-week period (this 52-week period is aligned with maternity or adoption leave), with more flexible notice requirements.

For all current parental pay entitlements an employee must fulfil a continuity of service requirement^{[footnote 4]} and an earnings test^{[footnote 5]}. Maternity Allowance is a benefit provided to mothers who have given birth who may not fulfil the requirements for statutory maternity pay but need to have time off work to recover.

Where this document refers to a statutory rate for a pay entitlement, the 2025 to 2026 amount is £187.18.

In cases where surrogacy arrangements are used, legal parenthood can be transferred by parental order after the child is born. Parental order parents, if requirements^{[footnote 6]} are met, are eligible for the usual suite of family leave and pay entitlements. The birth mother remains entitled to maternity leave and pay regardless of what arrangements are made in relation to the future care of child.

These summaries are not intended to set out the full detail of each entitlement. Full details of each entitlement are available.

Maternity leave and pay

Maternity leave is available for eligible birth mothers. All employed women are entitled to 52 weeks’ maternity leave from the first day of their employment, subject to providing the correct notice. Maternity leave can start up to 11 weeks before the expected week of birth of the child, however it can automatically start the first day after birth or if the mother is absent (wholly or partly) for pregnancy related reasons after the start of the fourth week before the expected week of childbirth. If a mother experiences a stillbirth after 24 weeks of pregnancy, she is entitled to maternity leave.

Mothers may also be entitled to Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) or Maternity Allowance (MA). Mothers who qualify for SMP receive 90% of their average weekly earnings (with no upper limit) for the first 6 weeks, followed by 33 weeks at the statutory rate.

Mothers who do not qualify for SMP may be eligible for MA. This could include women who are self-employed or not currently employed, or who are employed but do not meet the threshold tests for SMP, provided they have the necessary work^{[footnote 7]} and earnings^{[footnote 8]} history for MA. In 2025 to 2026, the rate of MA is between £27 to £187.18 for 39 weeks.

The 2019 Parental Rights Survey (government survey of parents) found:

• more than 4 in 5 (83 per cent) of mothers took maternity leave, with take up higher than average among older mothers, those in full time employment, on higher incomes, working in public administration, health and education sectors, those who had worked in their job for a longer period of time and in higher level occupational groups. Take up of maternity leave among mothers employed before birth was 89 per cent

• seven in 10 (70 per cent) mothers say they received Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) when they had their child, while 1 in 7 (14 per cent) received Maternity Allowance (MA) and a similar proportion (13 per cent) received Occupational Maternity Pay (OMP). One in 6 (16 per cent) reported receiving none of these

• on average mothers’ maternity leave lasted for nearly 44 weeks in total, with 40 weeks of those weeks after the birth of their child. This represents an increase over time, from an average of 32 weeks in 2006, to 39 weeks in 2008^{[footnote 9]}

• following the birth of their child, over half (54 per cent) of all mothers went back to their previous job and were still there at the time of interview compared to three-quarters (77 per cent) of all fathers. Where parents did return to their pre-birth job, mothers were much more likely than fathers to have experienced some change to their working hours (32 per cent; 3 per cent) or working arrangements (24 per cent; 2 per cent)

Adoption leave and pay

Adoption leave is available to the eligible employed adoptive parent who opts to be treated as the primary adopter. Adoption leave can be taken from the first day in a new job subject to fulfilling notice requirements, in line with maternity leave, and enables employed parents to take up to 52 weeks off work when a child is placed with them for adoption.

In line with arrangements for Statutory Maternity Pay, some individuals may also qualify for Statutory Adoption Pay (SAP) if they meet the same criteria (paid at the same rate and for same period as Maternity Pay).

The Parental Rights Survey (DBT survey of parents) found:

• an employee had taken adoption leave in the 2 years prior to the survey in 2 per cent of all workplaces. This was more common in the public sector, where this applied to 10 per cent of workplaces, compared with 4 per cent in the third sector and one per cent in the private sector

• HMRC Real Time Information (RTI) and Pay As You Earn (PAYE) data has been broadly stable in the past 5 years with around 4,500 individuals in receipt of SAP in 2023 to 2024

Paternity leave and pay

Paternity leave is available for eligible employed fathers or partners, both in relation to birth or adoption. These individuals are entitled to 2 weeks of paternity leave in the first 52 weeks after the child’s birth or placement for adoption. These 2 weeks do not need to be taken consecutively.

To be eligible for paternity leave in a birth scenario, a parent must have completed 26 weeks of continuous service before the end of the “qualifying week” – the 15th week before the expected week of childbirth. They may also be eligible for Statutory Paternity Pay if they meet the qualifying conditions. The Employment Rights Bill will make paternity leave a ‘day one’ right.

The 2019 Parental Rights Survey (DBT survey of parents) found:

• take up of paternity leave is lower than for maternity leave. Three in 5 (59 per cent) of fathers took paternity leave following the birth of their child. Based on fathers who were employees before the birth of their child the take up of paternity leave increased to 70 per cent

• fathers who did not take statutory leave were more than 3 times as likely as mothers to say this was because they could not afford to (35 per cent; 11 per cent among mothers). 27 per cent of fathers did not take statutory leave because they were not entitled to it

• six in 10 (58 per cent) fathers received full pay throughout their paternity leave, while a quarter (23 per cent) did not receive full pay for any period on leave. Of the 23 per cent that did not receive full pay for any weeks, two-thirds (64 per cent) were paid at the statutory rate per week at the time of the survey and 1 in 10 (9 per cent) were paid a proportion or percentage of their salary

Shared parental leave and pay

Shared Parental Leave (SPL) and Statutory Shared Parental Pay (SShPP) are available to eligible employed parents in relation to births and adoptions. Both parents must fulfil qualifying conditions in order for either parent to take either SPL or ShPP. Parents can share up to 50 weeks of leave and up to 37 weeks of pay during the first year of their child’s life or placement for adoption.

Shared parental pay is paid at the standard flat rate for statutory pay.

HMRC RTI and PAYE data suggests that the number of individuals in receipt of Statutory Shared Parental Pay has steadily increased year on year since the policy’s introduction; in 2015 to 2016 there were 6,200 individuals in receipt of ShPP and this had risen to 17,200 in 2023 to 2024.

The 2019 Parental Rights Survey (DBT survey of parents) found:

• just one per cent of mothers (and similarly one per cent among employee mothers) and 4 per cent of fathers from the core sample (and 5 per cent that were employee fathers) took SPL

• parents taking SPL were more likely than mothers and fathers in general to be aged 35 and above (65 per cent), qualified to degree level or above (88 per cent), on higher incomes (average of £43,500 before birth), and to be managers and senior officials or in professional occupations (85 per cent)

• sixty-three per cent of SPL parents stated that SPL allowed them both to have a full role in caring for the child as a positive consequence of the leave they took

Parental bereavement leave and pay

Parental bereavement leave is available to eligible employed individuals in various forms of ‘parental’ relationship with a child who tragically dies before they turn 18, or following a stillbirth after 24 weeks of pregnancy. Parental bereavement leave can be taken from the first day in a new job, subject to notice requirements, and provides up to 2 weeks leave during the 56 weeks after the death.

If eligible, parents may qualify for Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay paid at the statutory rate.

The Management and Wellbeing Practices Survey (DBT survey of employer workplaces) was undertaken in late 2018 and early 2019 and therefore predates the introduction of Statutory Parental Bereavement Leave and Pay in April 2020, found:

• forty-four per cent of workplaces had a formal or written bereavement leave policy for parents who had lost a child. Formal or written policies were more common in larger organisations; around one-third (31 per cent) of workplaces in small organisations had such a policy, compared with 53 per cent of workplaces in medium-sized organisations and 66 per cent among workplaces in large organisations

• formal policies were also more prevalent in the public sector, with 61 per cent of such workplaces having a formal written policy, compared with 42 per cent of private sector and 46 per cent of third sector workplaces

Unpaid parental leave

Eligible employed parents^{[footnote 10]} are entitled to 18 weeks of unpaid leave for each child up to the child’s 18th birthday, once they have completed 12 months service with their employer.  The leave is per parent per child and usually up to 4 weeks of this leave can be taken in any year.

As reported in the 2024 Impact Assessment for making parental leave a day one right, the 2020 Employee Rights Survey found:

• three per cent of fathers, 6 per cent of mothers and 5 per cent of employee parents overall took unpaid parental leave in the last year

• with the majority of those who had taken unpaid parental leave taking up to one week off (74 per cent), 19 per cent taking over one week and 7 per cent unsure of the duration

Neonatal care leave and pay

Neonatal care leave is available for eligible employed parents of babies who are admitted into neonatal care up to the age of 28 days, and who have a continuous stay in neonatal care of 7 full days or more. Neonatal care leave can be taken from the first day in a new job, subject to notice requirements, and provides up to twelve weeks of leave to be taken within 68 weeks of the baby’s date of birth – with one week available for every 7 consecutive full days the baby spends in neonatal care.

If eligible, neonatal care pay is available and paid at the statutory flat rate.

As reported in the 2023 Impact Assessment for neonatal care leave and pay:

• an estimated 100,000 babies are admitted to neonatal care each year following their birth in the UK

• an estimated 40,000 babies spend over one week in neonatal care each year. It is estimated that around 58,000 parents will be eligible and around 35,000 parents will take up paid neonatal care leave every year

Objectives for a parental leave and pay system

The terms of reference for the review explain that the government is seeking to improve the parental leave and pay system to better support working families, the modern economy, and specific objectives.

These objectives will guide our consideration of the current set of entitlements and support us to develop an understanding of what an improved system could look like. These objectives may evolve and there may be trade-offs to make between them as the work of the review progresses.

Most government-held data on parental leave and pay has been collated by entitlement and focused on take up. We are seeking views and evidence to help expand our evidence base and to understand how the current entitlements are operating in relation to the objectives proposed in the terms of reference.

The objectives against which we will consider the current system and the case for change of any future reform, are:

• maternal health: support the physical and mental health, recovery and wellbeing of women during pregnancy and post-partum by giving them sufficient time away from work with an appropriate level of pay

• economic growth through labour market participation: support economic growth by enabling more parents to stay in work and advance in their careers after starting a family, particularly to improve both women’s labour market outcomes and the gender pay gap, reduce the ‘motherhood penalty’, and harness benefits for employers

• best start in life: ensure sufficient resources and time away from work to support new and expectant parents’ wellbeing and facilitate the best start in life for babies and young children, supporting health and development outcomes

• childcare: support parents to make balanced childcare choices that work for their family situation, including enabling co-parenting, and provide flexibility to reflect the realities of modern work and childcare needs

This review will also focus on 3 cross-cutting considerations in all areas of its work:

• fairness and equality: building a fair system, between parents within a family, different types of parents (such as birth, single, adopters, parental order, kinship), and different employment statuses (such as employee, worker, self-employed)

• cost: balancing costs and benefits to both businesses and the exchequer and considering how the system can support economic opportunities for businesses and families. As part of this, the review will consider opportunities to make the process surrounding parental leave easier for both businesses and parents

• social: improving our society, for example in supporting the child poverty strategy, and shifting social and gender norms including around paternal childcare

The objectives for the system span the policy responsibilities of a number of different government departments – both Department of Business and Trade, and Department for Work and Pensions, as well as Department for Education, Department of Health and Social Care, Office for Equality and Opportunity and HM Treasury. The lead departments will engage closely with other departments to ensure our evidence base is broad and robust.

Call for evidence

The government would like to improve its understanding of the extent to which the current entitlements support the objectives set out in the terms of reference. This will inform the work of the review. We would also like to test whether these objectives are the right ones, so they can continue to be refined during the work of the review, to best reflect a system that meets the needs of working parents.

Testing and understanding these objectives will enable us to articulate how the system is currently operating in relation to the objectives – understanding what is and is not working well, to inform targeted work on reform options for improvement.

We are therefore seeking views on these objectives and how they relate to our current set of parental leave and pay entitlements.

We have published an evidence annex alongside this call for evidence^{[footnote 11]}. This sets out the evidence from various sources that government currently holds in relation to the existing parental leave and pay entitlements.

Through this call for evidence, we are particularly interested in any new information or evidence that has not previously been shared with government and that relates directly to the objectives set out here for the parental leave and pay system.

We welcome a broad range of responses from different institutions and bodies, including advocacy groups, academics, businesses and business representative groups, trade unions, as well as parents, to inform our current thinking.

The call for evidence will be open from 1 July 2025 to 26 August 2025.

Call for evidence questions

Question 1: Please tell us in what capacity you are primarily responding:

• As an individual
• As an academic, or on behalf of an academic or research organisation
• As a large enterprise, with at least 250 employees
• As a medium enterprise, with between 50 and 249 employees
• As a small enterprise, with fewer than 50 employees
• As a large public authority, with at least 250 employees
• As a small or medium public authority, with fewer than 250 employees
• On behalf of a civil society organisation or group
• On behalf of an organisation that represents employers
• On behalf of an organisation that represents employees – for example, trade unions
• Other

Question 2: If you are responding on behalf of an employer or another organisation, what is its name?

Question 3: What is your sex? (If responding as an individual)

• Female
• Male
• Prefer not to say

Question 4: What is your employment status? (If responding as an individual)

• Employee
• Worker^{[footnote 12]}
• Self-employed
• Director
• Unemployed
• In education
• Retired
• Office holder^{[footnote 13]}
• Other

Question 5a: Do you think that the current parental leave and pay entitlements supports these objectives (Yes or No):

• Providing sufficient time off work with adequate pay to support maternal health
• Supporting economic growth through labour market participation by enabling more parents to stay in work and advance in their careers, including reducing the gender pay gap
• Ensuring adequate resources and leave for parents to facilitate the best start in life by supporting the healthy development of young children
• Providing parents the flexibility to make balanced childcare choices, including co-parenting

Question 5b: For each objective, briefly explain the reasons for your selection above. Please provide any evidence (including links) to support your view. 

Question 6: Are there further or other objectives that you would like to see included as part of the parental leave and pay review? (Yes or No)

Question 6b: Please list and briefly explain each one, including providing links to any relevant evidence.

Question 7: Please prioritise the objectives, including any additional objectives, in order of importance (for example with 1 being most important).

Question 8: If you have any additional comments, evidence or suggestions that you have not had the opportunity to provide elsewhere, please do so here.

How to respond

We encourage you to respond online if possible. 

Alternatively, you can

Email: ParentalLeaveReview@businessandtrade.gov.uk

Write to:

Parental Leave Review Team
Department for Business and Trade
Old Admiralty Building
Admiralty Place
London
SW1A 2DY

Providing more than one response

You can provide more than one response to the call for evidence. For example, if you are a university research group, you might provide 2 separate responses – one response as a representative organisation and one response as an individual academic.

If you have any complaints or comments about the call for evidence process you should contact the Department for Business and Trade.

Confidentiality and data protection

We will only process your personal data for purposes which are compatible with those specified in this privacy notice. This may include archiving in the public interest, or scientific, historical or statistical research, in accordance with Article 89 UK GDPR. Where your data is further used for research purposes, appropriate safeguards (including anonymisation, pseudonymisation and data minimisation techniques) will be used to ensure that your personal data is only processed where it is necessary for us to do so, and that it is processed lawfully and securely.  

Compatible research purposes may include analysis to further DBT policy development, or to analyse public consultation responses or similar requests for information from the public.  

We are trialling Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions to support the delivery of our functions. Unless made expressly clear to you, we will not use AI to either make or inform decisions about you. We will apply effective data minimisation techniques to all such uses of your data.

Your responses, including any personal data, may be shared with a third-party provider, or other government department or organisation acting on behalf of the Department for Business and Trade under contract or an equivalent agreement, for the purpose of analysis and summarising responses for us and may use technology, such as artificial intelligence. An anonymised version of responses in a list or summary of responses received, and in any subsequent review reports may be published. We may also share your personal data where required to by law. You can leave out personal information from your response entirely if you would prefer to do so. 

Wherever possible avoid including any additional personal data in free-text responses beyond that which has been requested or which you consider it necessary for DBT to be aware of.

1. As per the second review aim in the terms of reference: expand our existing evidence base and understanding of the current system, assessing what is and is not working well for families and employers. ↩

2. This primarily consists of evidence from the Parental Rights Survey, Management and Wellbeing Practices Survey and the Shared Parental Leave Evaluation. ↩

3. Parental leave and pay review: summary of existing evidence. ↩

4. There is a requirement for the employee to have worked for their employer continuously for at least 26 weeks by the end of a designated week, known as the ‘qualifying’ week. For pay entitlements linked to a child’s birth, this is defined as the 15th week before the expected week of childbirth. For adoption, this is 26 weeks ending with the week in which the child is matched for adoption. For neonatal care pay, this week is defined in the same way as it is for maternity, paternity and adoption pay where there is eligibility for those entitlements, and as the week before the baby enters neonatal care, where there is not.  Where a child is being adopted from abroad, this week is the week before the adoptive parent wants their pay to start. ↩

5. There is a requirement for an employee to be earning an average of at least £125 a week (Lower Earnings Limit) over an 8-week reference period. ↩

6. This includes the usual requirements for continuity of service and minimum average earnings, as well as the individual either has been given a parental order in respect of the child, or intends to apply for one in the 6 months after the baby’s birth, in the expectation that it will to be granted by the court. ↩

7. ‘Engaged in employment’ on either an employed or self-employed basis for 26 out of the 66 weeks immediately before the expected week of childbirth. ↩

8. Have earned an average at least over the MA threshold (£30 per week) for 13 out of those 66 weeks. ↩

9. The change in the average length of leave may be explained by the extension of Statutory Maternity Leave from 26 to 39 weeks in 2007. ↩

10. Eligibility extends to those who have ‘parental responsibility’ for a child (or ‘parental responsibilities’ in Scotland). ↩

11. Parental leave and pay review: summary of existing evidence. ↩

12. Employment status: Worker – GOV.UK. ↩

13. Employment status: Office holder – GOV.UK. ↩