MP felt 'huge pressure' to work on paternity leave

An MP who recently became a father for the third time is calling on the government to extend paternity leave for new fathers and back "day one" rights to statutory paternity pay.

Jon Pearce, the Labour member for High Peak in Derbyshire, is pushing the government to widen paternity rights for fathers after feeling "a huge amount of pressure" to continue working when his daughter was born last autumn.

Unusually for a male MP, Pearce took three weeks of paternity leave, more than the legal two-week entitlement.

He is now urging the government to go "further and faster" to support families and recognise that "two weeks just isn't enough".

"It would've been really good for our family to have more time to settle down," he told the BBC.

"I felt a huge amount of pressure as a relatively new MP that I needed to make sure that I carried on working... I think lots of dads feel that pressure."

He told the BBC he had recently heard from fathers who had felt too pressurised from employers to take any kind of paternity leave at all.

"One dad told me he actually left that employer around six months later because of the way he'd been treated. This really matters to dads," he said.

Fathers can take a maximum of two weeks of paternity leave and must finish within 52 weeks of the birth. The rules differ slightly for adoption.

Pearce hopes to put pressure on the government alongside campaign groups in an upcoming paternity review to extend leave for fathers.

The government has committed to a review but has yet to confirm a date for when it will begin.

Pearce also says he supports an "important" amendment on the Employment Rights Bill that calls for paternity leave rights in the workplace to apply from the first day, including statutory paternity pay - but says the wider review on the issue should be the focus.

"The key thing is that we have, as part of this parental review that the government's committed to, that at the end of that, we see more than two weeks of paternity weeks being offered because two weeks just isn't enough," he said.

Parliament has been discussing amendments to the bill this week.

While it will give thousands more new fathers each year statutory paternity leave, it will not extend leave beyond two weeks.

They will also still need to have worked for the same employer for 26 weeks up to the "qualifying week" of 15 weeks prior to the due date before being eligible for statutory paternity pay.

The Conservative peer Baroness Penn has said that the government's commitment to "day one" paternity rights is "hot air" without a commitment on pay.

Campaign group Dad Shift says while the bill will give the right to paternity leave to thousands of fathers who currently get nothing, it added: "It's still only giving people the right to the worst paternity leave in Europe - two weeks at less than half the minimum wage.

"We need the government to go much further and bring in at least six weeks at 90% pay for everyone."

A government spokesperson said: "Our Plan for Change is on the side of working parents, which is why we are making paternity leave and unpaid parental leave day one rights under the Employment Rights Bill.

"We're also committed to carrying out a review of the parental leave system to ensure it best supports working families."

Follow BBC Derby on Facebook, on X, or on Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected] or via WhatsApp on 0808 100 2210.