Andy Burnham is coming under increasing pressure from his own MPs to commit to improving paternity leave in the UK in the next budget, with more than a quarter of Labour MPs writing to the prime minister to urge him to take action.
Ahead of the chancellor’s first budget next month, 105 MPs have written to Burnham calling on him to increase statutory paternity leave to help alleviate the cost of living crisis and arguing that lowest-paid fathers are the hardest hit by meagre paternity leave provision.
Momentum is growing on the Labour benches for action to be taken on parental leave, with many arguing it is a headline-grabbing policy that they say would cut through with voters. MPs have their sights set on the government’s parental leave review, which is due in December, but many are hoping Burnham could take definitive action before then.
The Guardian understands that almost half of Labour’s 403 MPs have explicitly supported improvement to paternity leave, including two secretaries of state, 11 ministers, six whips and nearly two dozen parliamentary private secretaries. “That’s nearly a quarter of all government office holders, and plenty more have indicated support in private,” said one supporter.
In the letter to Burnham from MPs, seen by the Guardian, parliamentarians urge the prime minister to take the “obvious” step of increasing paid paternity leave to tackle the cost of living crisis. They point out that in his constituency of Makerfield half of all fathers will not be able to afford to take paternity leave.
Coordinated by the influential Labour peer and former Trades Union Congress (TUC) general secretary Frances O’Grady and the MPs Maya Ellis and Jon Pearce, the letter calls on Burnham and the chancellor, John Healey, to help families with babies, who they say are at the “sharp end of the cost of living crisis”.
Noting that, according to HMRC data, more leave is taken in south-east England and London than in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and north-west and north-east England combined, and that 90% of the paternity leave that is claimed goes to higher earners, the letter argues that giving fathers six weeks’ leave paid at 90% of earnings would result in £2.6bn in economic growth. It adds that it would be “good growth, which sorting out the above geographic disparities would deliver into every postcode”.
O’Grady said there was a growing consensus in the Labour ranks that the eye-catching policy would be welcomed by voters, particularly among blue-collar workers, who were the most likely to miss out on paternity leave.
“I think the moment has come, because I do think Andy Burnham has shown that he gets the pressures of everyday life,” she said. “He promised hope in every heart and I can’t think of a better way of building that optimism in our future than giving a better start to babies. This could genuinely transform everyday lives, and it’s something that people would cherish for ever.”
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Campaigners have long argued that the UK has one of the least generous paternity offers in the world, with the UK ranked 40th out of 43 OECD countries. Employed fathers in the UK get two weeks’ statutory paternity leave paid at £187.18 a week (less than half the “national living wage”), which accounts for only 1.9% of all government spending on parental leave.
At the start of the month, 48 charities, unions and academics called on Burnham to overhaul parental leave to make having a family more financially viable. The group – which included the Fawcett Society, Movember, the TUC and Mumsnet – warned that the current system resulted in “stark” consequences, with a report last year by Maternity Action finding that 55% of women on maternity leave said they borrowed money to cover their living costs.
“This is not just a question of how we support families in the first year of a child’s life,” they wrote. “It is about what kind of society and economy we want to build; financial pressures make parenthood less attractive and less feasible, with significant implications for the economy and society.”
In August, thousands of parents took part in a “parent strike” organised by the campaign groups Mother Pukka and the Dad Shift to call for better parental leave, with demonstrations in London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Brighton and Oxford.
George Gabriel, a co-founder of the Dad Shift, said: “With working families expecting a newborn among the most exposed to the price shocks and proof in country after country that improving paternity leave boosts women’s economic prospects, this is one of a tiny handful of policies that is both a measure to drive good growth in every postcode and to tackle the cost of living.”
A government spokesperson said it was determined to make sure that dads and partners can be there to provide support to their families after childbirth. “Changes we’ve already made brought an additional 32,000 partners into scope for paternity leave and we are carrying out a full review of parental pay and leave to ensure we reflect the realities of modern work and childcare.”
