Review Of The Parental Rights System

Modernising The Parental Rights System To Provide A Simple, Fair And Flexible Framework

The Government has launched a comprehensive, wide-ranging, review of parental leave and pay, to consider how the current system could be improved to better support working families and meet the needs of the modern economy.

Since the introduction of maternity rights in 1975, the system has become increasingly complex. The current system developed gradually over many years with new entitlements such as adoption leave, dependants leave, paternity leave, shared parental leave, surrogacy rights and unpaid parental leave being added and much more recently we have seen neonatal care leave and parental bereavement leave being added to the mix. Each has its own rules, eligibility criteria and unique features, making it challenging to create clear policies for employees to understand and for managers to administer.

The review, which forms part of the Government’s Plan to Make Work Pay, is expected to run for a period of 18 months. It will consider all existing forms of parental leave, including changes announced as part of the Employment Rights Bill, to see how the system can be modernised so all the different elements work together as one simpler, fairer and more flexible framework.

The Government’s aims of the review are to:

• Articulate objectives for the parental leave and pay system, setting the foundation for considering what an improved system should deliver
• Expand the existing evidence base and understanding of the current system, to assess what is and is not working well for families and employers
• Consider the options and principles for a system that better supports the Government’s objectives
• Deliver a roadmap for how to move to a system that better supports these objectives (bearing in mind economic constraints).

The proposed objectives for considering the current system and the case for future reform are as follows:

• Maternal Health: supporting the physical and mental health, recovery and wellbeing of women during and after pregnancy.
• Economic Growth: enabling more parents to stay in work and advance their careers after starting a family.
• Sufficient Resources and Time Away From Work: ensuring families have the time and resources to support new and expectant parents’ wellbeing and facilitate early childhood development.
• Childcare Flexibility: enabling parents to make balanced childcare choices that work for their family and reflect the realities of modern working patterns and childcare needs.

Call For Evidence

Alongside the review, a ‘Call for Evidence’ has been published seeking views on the Government’s objectives and how they relate to the current parental leave and pay entitlements. It includes a useful overview of the current system, summarising the various different entitlements and take-up statistics.

The aim is to improve understanding of the extent to which the current entitlements support the objectives set out in the terms of reference. They also would 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.

Responses are welcomed from different institutions and bodies, including advocacy groups, academics, businesses and business representative groups, trade unions, as well as parents.

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

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Women And Equalities Committee Recommendations

The review follows a June 2025 report from the Women And Equalities Committee which stated that that the statutory parental leave system does not support working families and has fallen far behind most comparable countries. The Women And Equalities Committee made a number of recommendations including increasing paid Statutory Paternity Leave to six weeks and raising paternity pay to the higher level of maternity pay that applies for the first six weeks of the period of leave i.e. 90% of average earnings. They also recommend increasing statutory pay across the system, to bring rates for all working parents up to 80% or more of average earnings or the real Living Wage.

Next Steps

The Employment Rights Bill already includes several minor measures designed to enhance family friendly leave, which include making paternity leave and (unpaid) parental leave ‘day one’ rights. These aim of this review is to bring more radical changes and simplify what has become an overly complex system.

The review is due to concluded in December 2026, after which the Government will publish its findings with a roadmap setting out the next steps for implementing any proposed reforms. The Government will need to undertake further consultation before introducing new legislation, meaning that it might be close to the next General Election (or even beyond) before we see a reformed system in place. There is no immediate action required from employers at this stage.

Employee Handbook Compliance Package