Employment & Pensions Blog: An In-Depth Look at the Changes to Paternity Leave with effect from March 2024

Following on from our Employment Round-Up Update at the back end of last year, we dive deeper into the proposals to make changes to paternity leave rights due to come into force on 8 March 2024.

The Current Law

Currently, fathers and partners must take their paternity leave within the first 8 weeks after childbirth or adoption placement. They must also choose between taking 1 week or 2 weeks of paternity leave, which must be taken in one continuous period. Employees must also give their employer at least 15 weeks’ notice before the birth, together with details of the child’s due date, when they want their leave to start, and how much leave they want to take.

The Key Changes

Fathers and partners will be entitled to take their paternity leave as two non-consecutive blocks of one week each. They will also be allowed to take their leave and pay at any point in the first year after the birth or adoption of their child. This will allow them greater flexibility to plan if they are not able to afford to take 2 consecutive weeks pay at the applicable statutory paternity rates (and therefore have to forfeit one week), or would rather delay taking their leave to accommodate childcare if their partner is returning to work prior to reaching 1 year of maternity leave. 

An employee will be required to give 28 days’ notice of the leave they intend to take. It must however be noted that they must still provide their notice of entitlement 15 weeks’ before birth.  This is aimed at giving them more flexibility and allowing them to decide when to take their leave at shorter notice. However, for domestic adoption cases, the notice period for paternity leave will remain within seven days of the adopter having received notice of having been matched with a child. This is because the adoption process is less predictable than birth and children may be placed at short notice after being matched with their adoptive parents.

Fathers and partners who have given an initial notice of leave, will be allowed to vary dates given provided they give 28 days’ notice of the variation. Again, this allows further flexibility for plans to change at a later stage to best suit the needs of the families. 

When do the Regulations Come into Force?

The Regulations are due to come into force on 8 March 2024. The specific amendments in the regulations will take effect in relation to children whose expected week of childbirth is after 6 April 2024, and children whose expected date of placement for adoption (or expected date of entry into the UK for overseas adoptions) is on or after 6 April 2024.

These changes are due to take effect in or around the same time as other family-friendly rights around carer’s leave, flexible working and redundancy protection.

Comment

Employers will need to ensure that their HR team and people managers are well versed with these upcoming changes. Internal policies and systems will need to be updated/adapted to mitigate the risk of errors being made particularly around the complexities around notice. Employers may also wish to provide training to staff (including managers) to strengthen their understanding of the changes and implications if these are not adhered to.  

Other than the practical points set out above, the overall impact on employers is limited, as the overall entitlement remains at just 2 weeks. 

There may be some further changes that lie ahead should there be a change in Government, as the Labour Party has indicated that they may scrap the requisite period of 6 months continued employment required to qualify for statutory paternity leave.

If you have any questions on the new paternity leave changes, or another area, please get in touch with a member of our Employment Team.