'It's broken' | Government must address 'fundamental failings' in UK's parental leave system, committee warns

The UK’s parental leave system is “broken” and requires urgent, meaningful reform, according to a new report from the Women and Equalities Committee (WEC), which has warned the Government not to “tinker around the edges” of its proposed review.

In its Equality at work: Paternity and shared parental leave report, the WEC outlined a series of systemic failings, including inadequate leave for fathers, low statutory pay, poor access for many workers and significant complexity in the Shared Parental Leave (SPL) scheme.

The UK’s statutory parental pay has not kept pace with inflation and remains far below that of many comparable countries, the committee said. It recommended increasing paternity pay to 90% of average earnings for the first six weeks, in line with maternity pay, during this Parliament. Longer term, it urged the Government to work towards raising statutory parental pay to 80% or more of average earnings, or at least the real Living Wage.

The WEC also called for a day one right to paid paternity leave and proposed incrementally increasing paid paternity leave to six weeks, drawing on reforms in countries such as Spain. It noted that the UK offers one of the weakest paternity leave entitlements in the developed world, saying the current maximum of two weeks is “completely out of step” with modern parenting expectations and reinforces outdated gender roles.