On 1 July 2025, the Government launched a full review of all types of parental leave and pay provisions in Great Britain.
Background
In its Plan to Make Work Pay, the Government promised to conduct a full review of the parental leave system within its first year. As part of this commitment, the Employment Rights Bill introduces some standalone changes to parental leave, such as making paternity leave and unpaid parental leave ‘day one’ rights (see our Reform Hub for more details). However, the Government has now launched a comprehensive review and accompanying call for evidence to inform more extensive reforms to the parental leave and pay system.
The review follows hot on the heels of a report in June from the Women and Equalities Committee (‘WEC’) highlighting that the parental leave system “does not support working families effectively.” The WEC said it wants to ensure that any review “grasps the scale of the task ahead and forms the foundation of a credible and sustainable approach to long-term reform of a policy area that is vital to promoting gender equality.” The Government has acknowledged that the current system of leave is complicated, which, combined with the low levels of statutory pay, has led to a low take up of paternity leave and shared parental leave.
What is the scope of the review?
The Government’s stated aims for the review are to establish the strengths and weaknesses of the current system, develop its objectives to improve the system and come up with a plan to achieve those objectives.
The review is broad in scope and will look at all current and upcoming statutory parental leave and pay entitlements in Great Britain (employment policy is devolved to Northern Ireland so is not in scope). This includes:
- maternity leave and pay;
- paternity leave and pay;
- adoption leave and pay;
- shared parental leave and pay;
- parental bereavement leave and pay;
- unpaid parental leave;
- neonatal care leave and pay;
- Maternity Allowance; and
- the upcoming unpaid bereaved partner’s paternity leave.
The Government’s current stated objectives for the parental leave and pay system are to:
- Support the maternal health of women during pregnancy and post-partum by giving them sufficient time off work with an appropriate level of pay.
- Support economic growth through labour marketing participation by enabling more parents to stay in work and advance in their careers after starting a family.
- Ensure adequate resources and leave for parents to facilitate the best start in life for babies and young children.
- Support parents to make balanced childcare choices that work for their family situation.
The review will consider cross-cutting issues of fairness and equality, balancing costs and benefits with social improvements.
The accompanying call for evidence sets out statistics around use and take up of different types of parental leave. It is high-level in scope and focuses on the extent to which respondents think that the current parental leave and pay entitlements support the government’s four objectives set out above, the order in which they think the objectives should be prioritised, and if they think any further objectives should be included.
Next steps
The call for evidence is open until 25 August 2025 and can be accessed here for anyone wishing to submit their views.
The broader review was launched on 1 July 2025 and is expected to run for 18 months until the end of 2026, following which the Government will set out a ‘roadmap’ for further reforms to the parental leave system. It is therefore unlikely that we will know the details of any concrete plans until 2027.
You can keep up to date with all developments concerning the Labour Government’s policy reforms via our Reform Hub.
