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Work and Families Bill

We have been at pains to explain to the CBI and others that the paternity leave proposals will introduce precisely what would have applied under interchangeability. European and domestic law is tight on protecting the rights of women, so providing for some interchangeability and for them to be allowed to give up some of their leave was difficult legally. We have found another way to achieve that: the woman must be back at work for her partner, the father, to pick up the remaining leave. We always intended—because it was the result of the consultation—for that to happen in the second six months of the baby’s first year. The actual outcome is therefore exactly as we pledged it in the manifesto. It is simply not interchangeability, which we originally envisaged, because of the legal problems.