Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Register
Log in
Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

MaternityLatest NewsEconomics, government & businessPaternityLeave

Ministerial maternity bill passes amid criticism

by Ashleigh Webber 12 Feb 2021
by Ashleigh Webber 12 Feb 2021 Harriet Harman said the government should address low maternity pay for all women.
PA Images/Alamy
Harriet Harman said the government should address low maternity pay for all women.
PA Images/Alamy

MPs have voted to give ministers paid maternity leave for the first time, but the bill has been criticised for excluding backbench MPs and for giving no mention to paternity leave.

MPs overwhelmingly voted in favour of passing the Ministerial and other Maternity Allowances Bill yesterday, which will give cabinet members the right to six months’ maternity leave on full pay while their duties are temporarily covered by another person.

Parental leave

Ministerial maternity bill will help ‘spectacularly small’ number of women

Calls to extend parental leave during Covid-19 rejected

Furlough: parental pay to be calculated on usual earnings

But two Labour MPs criticised the exclusion of backbench MPs, who are able to take maternity leave but have no guarantee that their responsibilities in their constituency will be covered in their absence.

Stella Creasy has said she is prepared to take legal action, suggesting that offering enhanced protections to cabinet ministers is a form of direct discrimination, while Feryal Clark, who is due to give birth at the end of April, said she was “scared about taking informal maternity leave”.

“I’m scared that it will be used against me politically, and most depressing of all, I’m scared that beneath the warm words of ‘good luck’ and ‘congratulations’ some members will take a dim view of my taking of maternity leave at all,” Clark said.

Creasy told MPs: “I am early on in my pregnancy, I shouldn’t have to reveal that, but I am doing that today to be very clear to pregnant women around this country that they will find champions in this place, that it is not enough that we only act for that small group of women at the top of our society. We must act for every woman to be able to have maternity leave.”

Address maternity rights for all women

Labour MP Harriet Harman said the government should now act to address low statutory maternity pay and the “completely wrong situation for the rest of the women in the country”.

“Statutory maternity pay is only £152 per week and at that it is less than half of what you would get on the national minimum wage – so her income is clobbered just when she needs to be spending more. Honestly, if men had babies, do we really think that maternity pay would be so insultingly low? Not a chance,” said Harman.

Caroline Nokes, chair of the women and equalities select committee, welcomed the bill but was disappointed that such rights had not been considered earlier. She said: “What a mess that it is well into the 21st century before we have had to face this situation. And why oh why did it cross nobody’s mind that we might need to address this prior to it having the urgency it now does?”

“Is it really that unthinkable that a secretary of state or one of the law officers could become, heavens above, pregnant?”

Numerous MPs said they did not agree with the language used in the bill – particularly the use of the word “person”, which is at odds with other legislation covering maternity rights and protections, which refers to “women” specifically.

Conservative MP and paymaster general Penny Mordaunt said male MPs may want to take more than the two weeks statutory paternity leave, and the government “will consider this as part of our further work”.

Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance

Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday

OptOut
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

The bill is being rushed though in order to allow the attorney general, Suella Braverman, to take maternity leave. It will now undergo further scrutiny in the House of Lords.

HR Director opportunities on Personnel Today

Browse more HR director jobs

Ashleigh Webber

Ashleigh is a former editor of OHW+ and former HR and wellbeing editor at Personnel Today. Ashleigh's areas of interest include employee health and wellbeing, equality and inclusion and skills development. She has hosted many webinars for Personnel Today, on topics including employee retention, financial wellbeing and menopause support.

previous post
Managers pushing employees into workplaces, says TUC
next post
Pension Schemes Act hailed as ‘landmark’

You may also like

Government urged to commit to wholesale review of...

6 May 2025

Miscarriage and pregnancy loss leave progresses to House...

24 Mar 2025

New rules from April on neonatal leave and...

21 Mar 2025

April 2025: What’s coming up for HR?

21 Mar 2025

Ministers commit to miscarriage and pregnancy loss leave

12 Mar 2025

Tennis pros to receive paid maternity leave from...

6 Mar 2025

Up to 74,000 women forced out of work...

27 Feb 2025

Why 2025 is ‘make or break’ for your...

25 Feb 2025

New neonatal care leave rules will help 60,000...

6 Feb 2025

Right to neonatal care leave and pay to...

20 Jan 2025

  • 2025 Employee Communications Report PROMOTED | HR and leadership...Read more
  • The Majority of Employees Have Their Eyes on Their Next Move PROMOTED | A staggering 65%...Read more
  • Prioritising performance management: Strategies for success (webinar) WEBINAR | In today’s fast-paced...Read more
  • Self-Leadership: The Key to Successful Organisations PROMOTED | Eletive is helping businesses...Read more
  • Retaining Female Talent: Four Ways to Reduce Workplace Drop Out PROMOTED | International Women’s Day...Read more

Personnel Today Jobs
 

Search Jobs

PERSONNEL TODAY

About us
Contact us
Browse all HR topics
Email newsletters
Content feeds
Cookies policy
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions

JOBS

Personnel Today Jobs
Post a job
Why advertise with us?

EVENTS & PRODUCTS

The Personnel Today Awards
The RAD Awards
Employee Benefits
Forum for Expatriate Management
OHW+
Whatmedia

ADVERTISING & PR

Advertising opportunities
Features list 2025

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin


© 2011 - 2025 DVV Media International Ltd

Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+