E-petition relating to maternity and paternity pay

E-petition 715292, to raise statutory maternity/paternity pay to match the National Living Wage, received over 100,000 signatures and will be debated in Parliament. The debate will be opened by Jacob Collier MP on behalf of the Petitions Committee.

The petition said that “working parents, especially women, who contribute to the tax system are being pushed into poverty at their most vulnerable time”.

The government has said that statutory parental pay entitlements, such as maternity and paternity pay, provide some financial security for parents but are not intended to replace earnings from work. It has, however, begun a review of the parental pay and leave system.

Types of parental pay and eligibility

There are currently seven types of statutory parental pay entitlement, which support parents who take time off around the time their child is born, or the time they adopt. These pay entitlements apply to parents in different circumstances and have different eligibility criteria.

Six of these are for parents who are employees, and one (maternity allowance) is for parents who are not employees. The six employee entitlements are initially paid by employers, but they can claim most of this back from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC).

Some employers offer enhanced parental pay schemes with a higher contractual rate.

Eligible parents may also be entitled to 18 weeks’ unpaid parental leave in respect of each child under 18, up to four weeks of which may be taken per year.

Statutory maternity pay

In order to qualify for statutory maternity pay the employee must have worked for the same employer for 26 weeks as at the 15th week before the expected week of childbirth, earn £125 per week, notify her employer at least 28 days before she wants the payments to start and have given her employer proof that she is pregnant. SMP is paid for up to 39 weeks.

Maternity allowance

Maternity allowance is available to individuals that do not qualify for statutory maternity pay (such as the self-employed or recently unemployed). Maternity allowance is paid for up to 39 weeks.

Statutory paternity pay

Paternity leave is available to both men and women, provided the individual in question is parenting a child and is the partner of the mother or adopter. In order to qualify for statutory paternity pay the individual must have worked for the same employer for 26 weeks as at the 15th week before the expected week of childbirth, earn £125 per week and notify their employer at least 28 days before they want the payments to start. Paternity pay is paid for up to two weeks.

Shared parental pay

Shared parental pay becomes available if the mother or primary adopter choses to shorten their period of maternity or adoption leave and pay. The unused balance from the 39 weeks’ pay can then be shared in blocks between the parents.

Statutory adoption pay

Adoptive parents (or parents in a surrogacy arrangement) may nominate one parent to be the ‘primary adopter’, who may be entitled to adoption pay. The other parent may be entitled to paternity pay. In order to qualify for statutory adoption pay the employee must have worked for the same employer for 26 weeks by the week they were matched with a child, earn £125 per week, notify their employer at least 28 days before they want the payments to start and have given their employer proof of adoption or surrogacy. Statutory Adoption Pay is paid for up to 39 weeks.

Statutory parental bereavement pay

Parental bereavement pay applies when a child dies before they turn 18 or when someone pregnant suffers a stillbirth after 24 weeks of pregnancy. It is available to employees who are the baby’s biological or adoptive parents or the partner of such a parent. It is available to employees who have been in continuous employment for 26 weeks with their employer and earn at least £125 per week. Parental bereavement pay is paid for up to two weeks.

Statutory neonatal care pay

Neonatal care pay is available for employees in England, Scotland or Wales if their baby spends 7 days or more in a row in neonatal care, they are the baby’s parent or partner of the baby’s mother, have caring responsibility for the baby and are taking the leave to care for the baby. Neonatal care pay is available to employees who have been in continuous employment for 26 weeks with their employer and earn at least £125 per week. It is paid for up to 12 weeks.

Current rates of statutory parental pay

Most types of statutory parental pay are paid at one of two rates. For the 2025/26 financial year, these are:

• 90% of the employee’s average weekly earnings before tax
• a flat rate of £187.18 a week

Statutory maternity pay and statutory adoption pay are paid at 90% of the employee’s weekly earnings for the first six weeks. After that, the payment falls to £187.18 or remains at 90% of weekly earnings, whichever is lower.

All the other types of parental pay are paid at whichever of the two rates is lower.

However, the maximum flat rate of maternity allowance is only available if claimants have been registered with HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) for 26 of the 66 weeks before the baby was due and made Class 2 National Insurance contributions for at least 13 of those weeks. If they have not, their maternity allowance is reduced accordingly, to a minimum of £27 a week. Unlike the other types of parental pay, maternity allowance is not taxed.

Trends in parental pay and the National Minimum Wage

The rates of National Minimum Wage and statutory parental pay are reviewed each year. The most recent increase to the rate of parental pay was in April 2025, when the government increased the flat rate from £184.03 to £187.18 a week (a 1.7% increase, which was in line with the September 2024 measure of CPI inflation). The mechanism for uprating is set out in the next section.

The chart below shows how the highest rates of National Minimum Wage and the flat rate of statutory parental pay have changed since 1999 in real (inflation-adjusted) terms. It shows that the flat rate of parental pay has been roughly constant at just under £200 a week in April 2025 prices since 2003, whereas the highest rate of the National Minimum Wage has increased from around £300 a week in 2003 to £446 a week in 2025.

Notes: Adjusted for monthly CPI inflation. NLW = National Living Wage.

Source: Institute for Fiscal Studies, Maternity Allowance rates (XSLX); Low Pay Commission; Office for National Statistics series D7BT

The two minimum wage rates on the chart reflect how eligibility criteria for the highest rate of minimum wage have changed. The highest rate applied to those aged 21 and over between 1999 and 2015; a new higher rate was introduced for those aged 25 and above from 2016 (the National Living Wage), and eligibility for this higher rate was extended to those aged 21 and above from 2024.

The 2025/26 flat rate for statutory parental pay, £187.18, is 42% of the hourly National Living Wage, assuming a 36.5-hour average work week.

The most recent increase to the National Living Wage was in April 2025, when the government accepted the Low Pay Commission’s recommendation to increase it from £11.44 to £12.21 an hour (a 6.7% increase).

Mechanism for reviewing parental pay

The government must by law review benefit rates, including statutory pay, every year as part of its annual review of benefits and state pensions. This involves reviewing trends in prices and earnings in the preceding year.

The government explained its approach to uprating these rates in its response to the Women and Equalities Committee Sixth Report of Session 2024–26:

When considering calls to increase the level of parental entitlements, the government must balance a range of factors including the needs of parents, the impact on employers, and affordability for taxpayers. … [S]ignificant increases to the statutory rate of pay would mean a large increase to government spending.

In its response to the e-petition on increasing the rate of parental pay to match the National Living Wage, the government said that parental pay is intended to provide some financial security to parents, but is “not intended to replace earnings”. It also mentioned other sources of support for parents, including welfare benefits, as well as its intention to reduce child poverty through its upcoming child poverty strategy.

Government review of the parental leave and pay system in Great Britain

The government launched a review of the parental leave and pay system on 1 July 2025. The review is expected to run for 18 months. All current and upcoming parental leave and pay entitlements will be in scope. The government will conclude the review with a set of findings and a roadmap, including next steps for taking any potential reforms forward to implementation.

The Employment Minister at the time, Justin Madders, told the Commons in July 2025 that the current system of parental pay does not have a guiding set of objectives. He said the review would assess the current system against four objectives:

• supporting the health of women during pregnancy and after giving birth
• supporting economic growth by helping parents stay in work when they have children
• helping parents take enough time off work to support their wellbeing and that of their children
• providing flexibility for parents to make choices about childcare

Numbers of people claiming statutory parental pay

The table below shows the number of people claiming each type of statutory parental pay since 2015/16.

Statistics are not available for statutory parental bereavement pay or statutory neonatal care pay. The government said in 2023 that reliable data on the number of people claiming statutory parental bereavement pay was not available. Neonatal care pay has only been available since April 2025, so there are not yet any statistics on the number of claimants.

The maternity allowance figures are the numbers beginning to receive payments during the year, whereas the figures for the other types of parental pay are the number of individuals claiming in each year. This means some people might be counted in more than one year for all type of pay except maternity allowance.

Notes: The basis year for maternity allowance claimants runs from March to February, whereas the basis year for the other statistics runs from April to March. Maternity allowance statistics were not published in March to May 2022 because of a data error, and the data series has been suspended since September to November 2023, meaning the 2023/24 figure is based on three quarters rather than four.

Source: Department for Business and Trade, Parental Leave and Pay evidence: HMRC data covering April 2014 to March 2025, 10 September 2025, Tables 1 to 4; Department for Work and Pensions, Maternity Allowance: quarterly statistics, 13 August 2024, Number of Maternity Allowance spells starting in the quarter (table 1 or table 3 depending on release)

The government published the figures above as part of the evidence for its review of parental pay and leave. To supplement these figures from HMRC, the review evidence also contains information on parental pay from surveys of parents and employers: they asked parents whether they claimed maternity, paternity and adoption pay and they asked employers whether they offer occupational parental pay beyond what is required by law.