Amendments to Parental Leave Regulations Bring Changes for Parents

On 10 January, the Maternity and Parental Leave (Amendment) Regulations 2001 came into force, changing regulations on parental leave. The changes mean that all parents of children under five as at 15 December 1999 will be eligible to take parental leave. Also, parents of disabled children will now be able to take up to 18 weeks' leave.

Position pre-10 January

Since 15 December 1999, new parents and adoptive parents qualified for up to 13 weeks' unpaid parental leave provided they were employees and had worked for their employer continuously for one year by the time they wanted to take the leave. However, this right was restricted to parents of children born or placed for adoption on or after 15 December 1999.

The leave can only be taken in blocks of one week at a time (with the exception of parents of disabled children) and a maximum of four weeks taken in each year. It can be taken up to the child's fifth birthday or fifth anniversary of the date of placement for adoption and 21 days' notice of the intention to take parental leave was required. Parents of disabled children are able to take their parental leave with the longer period up to the child's 18th birthday. Employers do have the right to postpone a leave request if they can show that to take the leave at the time requested would unduly disrupt the business.

Following the introduction of the Parental Leave Regulations 1999, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) mounted a legal challenge to the restriction to parents of children born on or after 15 December 1999.

Position post-10 January

The Government has conceded the point raised by the TUC and the right is now extended to parents in respect of all children who were under the age of five as at 15 December 1999, resulting in the following amendments to the 1999 Regulations:

• Parents of children born or placed for adoption between 15 December 1994 and 14 December 1999 also have the right to take parental leave in respect of those children.
• These parents have a period of just over three years in which to take the leave. The precise time period is yet to be set, but is required to be a period of between three years and one week and three years and three months from 10 January.
• Parental leave for parents of disabled children is to increase from 13 to 18 weeks. The intention behind this increase is to allow parents of disabled children to take at least one week per year up to the child's 18th birthday of leave.

Unchanged is the employer's right to postpone a request, if able to show it would unduly disrupt the business. The leave remains unpaid. Also, the 21-day notice period is unchanged, but will likely be changed in 2003 to 28 days.

On the horizon

Further 'family-friendly' measures as set out in the Employment Bill 2001 and likely to be enforced in April 2003 include:

• six months' paid and a further six months' unpaid maternity leave for working mothers.
• six months' paid and a further six months' unpaid leave for working adoptive parents,
• two weeks' paid paternity leave for working fathers,
• an increase in Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) from £62.00 per week to £100 per week and
• reimbursement of maternity, paternity and adoption payments made by employers, with a full

100% recoverable by small employers with a further compensation payment on top. Additionally, in November the Department of Trade and Industry set out new proposals known as the Work and Parents Task Force. Under these proposals, employees of children under the age of six who have worked for the employer for at least six months will have the right to have a request for flexible working arrangements to be considered seriously by an employer. This will apply equally to both mothers and fathers. Again, this is expected to come into force some time in 2003.

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