The Employment Rights Bill is set to introduce significant workplace reform, promising to prioritise fairness and wellbeing for workers. This includes new day one rights for employees. However, as the bill is considered again by the House of Lords, it has been highlighted that day one rights will not include statutory paternity pay for new fathers who have been in a job less than nine months.
Currently, fathers must have continuously worked for the same employer for 26 weeks up to the qualifying week, the 15th week before a baby is due, to qualify for statutory paternity leave. If they qualify for statutory paternity pay too, this is paid at a weekly rate of £187.18, or 90% of earnings if lower.
In March 2024, research by campaigners Pregnant Then Screwed showed only three in five fathers took paternity leave. A key reason cited for not taking time off was affordability. With fathers missing out on important bonding time, and mothers having partner support removed so quickly, the campaign for better paternity rights has increasingly gathered airtime.
The bill does improve the position of new fathers to an extent. Statutory paternity leave would become a day one right, meaning the 26-week qualification period is removed. The right to paternity pay is another matter; in short the pay element is not included in the new day one rights.
Under current proposals, fathers will still need to have worked for the same employer for 26 weeks up to the qualifying week before being eligible for statutory paternity pay. As that is 15 weeks before the baby is due, in practical terms, an employee would need to have worked for their employer for around nine months by the time their baby is born to receive any statutory paternity pay.
Even with paternity leave available from day one of employment, the proposals compare woefully to the paternity offerings from our European neighbours. Pre-eminent House of Lords peers have pushed for amendments for better-paid rights for fathers and co-parents. We will have to watch this space as the bill returns to the Commons, but no doubt this, like so many issues, could meet with reluctance to increase the costs of the bill’s changes any further.
Lucy Burrows is a senior associate at Harbottle and Lewis
