News reports have highlighted the unexpected increase in the birthrate with 791,000 babies born in the UK last year, an increase of 33,000 on a year earlier. In Wales the number of births was also up with 35,500 babies born.
These new mothers will have found out with a shock the harsh reality of the UK’s miserly maternity provision. All a woman gets, even after years of working and contributing NI, is 6 weeks at 90% of her previous pay and then a further 26 weeks at £123.06. This will hardly pay the mortgage or rent let alone all those baby-grows, nappies and healthy food mother needs. The remaining 20 weeks of her maternity leave is unpaid. And the father? Well, he can have 2 weeks off, but it must be taken all in one go at the time of the birth, irrespective of whether it is needed at this time, and it is of course unpaid. A lucky few will get more generous provision from their employer, but they are few and far between.
Once the new parents have got over the shock of this mean and iniquitous regime, if they want to go back to work they face the challenge of finding and paying for decent quality childcare and also of finding a flexible employer who will accommodate the time off needed for the inevitable chicken pox, school inset days and parents ‘evenings’. Sure, parents have the right to ‘ask’ for flexible working arrangements and the right to take off up to 4 weeks a year (unpaid) in 1 week chunks and with 21 days notice (tell that to the chickenpox virus).
The arrangements are a mish-mash that don’t suit parents or employers. Simpler, fairer and more flexible arrangements that allow parents to chose for themselves when and how much time each of them takes off, with much higher rates of maternity pay especially for the first 4 months of maternity leave, would be a vote winner for the parents of those 3/4 million babies.
Uncle Bob 3:19 pm on 3 September, 2009 Permalink
Whilst I agree that paternity leave arrangements need amending (father should be encouraged to take a greater share of the burden) I don’t think just throwing money at the problem is such a wise idea. People should be aware of their financial situation and if they cannot afford to have a baby then they should delay it and make provisions to have the child at a time they can afford it.
Dr. Christopher Wood 1:52 pm on 4 September, 2009 Permalink
Yes, in Utopia we could all take time off when we liked, how we liked, and get ‘loads of money’ when we most needed it. Sadly though, the Welsh economy doesn’t have the resources, and the money Wales gets via London is/will not be enough. Businesses, particularly small ones, have their issues too, they live in a world where customers are king, and if they forget that, they generally lose their customers. Of course there could be LOTS more money in the Welsh economy if those in Welsh government took action to protect Wales’s #1 asset to enable Wales to better compete in the global economy. But ummmm, not that has happened and does not look like happening and whining about it when Welsh government has the power to take steps to improve the Welsh economy is like complaining about one’s car reliability if one hardly ever does what’s necessary to keep it in good working order. England makes the same kind of mistake too. Just the other day a big announcement was made about a technique that will have a huge impact – but was a patent filed on it? Nope. I know, I contacted the inventors and the first named one emailed me back telling me that a patent was not filed. Like with the monoclonal antibodies invention, a British invention, where meaningful patent protection was not sought, a whole new industry developed … in the USA. Thousands of workers and billions of turn-over – but in the USA based on an unprotected British invention by a team sponsored by the British MRC wtih taxpayer money.