Clause 7 - Entitlement to additional statutory paternity pay: adoption
Work and Families Bill
12:45 pm

Gerry Sutcliffe (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Employment Relations and Consumer Affairs), Department of Trade and Industry; Bradford South, Labour)

I beg to move amendment No. 18, in clause 7, page 6, line 11, leave out ‘adoption’ and insert ‘paternity’.

This Government amendment is designed to correct an error in the drafting of the Bill. Clause 7(1) refers to “additional statutory adoption pay”, but it should read additional statutory paternity pay. In the case of an adoption, it will allow the eligible partner of an adopter to receive additional statutory paternity pay.

Gerry Sutcliffe (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Employment Relations and Consumer Affairs), Department of Trade and Industry; Bradford South, Labour)

To slow the pace down a little, I should like to speak to clause 7.

In response to the growing demand for fathers to have greater opportunities to care for their child and have the option to be the primary carer, the Government are committed to introducing new legislation to provide parents with more choice and flexibility in caring for their children during the first year of the child’s life. Provisions have been made for   adoptive parents to enjoy the same rights as birth parents during the first year of the child’s placement for adoption. The introduction of a new right for partners of adopters to take an additional period of paternity leave will provide adoptive parents with that. Although provisions are being taken to allow partners up to a maximum of 26 weeks’ additional paternity leave, we wish to take powers to allow part of this period to be paid.

Clause 7 inserts new section 171ZEB in part 12ZA of the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992. The new section will allow the Secretary of State to make regulations entitling employees who satisfy certain conditions to additional statutory paternity pay following the placement of a child for adoption, as set out in subsection (1). Additional statutory paternity pay will be paid by employers who can recover most or all of it from the state, and it will be administered by employers in the same way as statutory paternity pay.

Subsection (2) provides for conditions that should be satisfied in order for someone to be entitled to additional statutory paternity pay. The person will be the partner of a person with whom a child has been placed for adoption—an “adopter”—or, if the child is jointly adopted by a couple, the member of the couple who does not take statutory adoption pay in respect of the adoption. Those conditions include the relationship with the child and the child’s adopter, the detail of which would be set out in regulations, and the employee’s employment status and earnings, the detail of which would again be set out in regulations.

Subsection (2) provides also for conditions that the adopter must meet for the partner to be entitled to additional statutory paternity pay: the adopter should have been entitled to statutory adoption pay and have some of that entitlement remaining, and they must have taken action that is treated as returning to work. That is set out in subsection (2)(f).

The regulations will set out exactly what constitutes return to work. The aim of this provision is to ensure that there is only one payment stream and only one partner off work to care for the child at any time. It will be the choice of the adopter if he or she wishes to return to work and when he or she does so.

The intention is that a partner would be able to receive additional statutory paternity pay only for the remainder of the period during which the adopter would have been entitled to statutory adoption pay had they not returned to work. For example, an adopter returning to work after 30 weeks of statutory adoption pay would enable an eligible partner to take nine weeks paid additional paternity leave. A partner would still be able to take unpaid additional paternity leave for a maximum of 26 weeks until the child’s first birthday.

The intention is that by the end of this Parliament we shall extend statutory adoption pay to 52 weeks from the 39 weeks that will be in place in April 2007. That would mean that under the same scenario, a partner would be entitled to up to 22 weeks paid additional paternity leave.

There has been a growing request for legislation to provide for circumstances in which the child’s mother dies. We have taken the opportunity to include in this clause, at subsection (3), a provision to allow some of the conditions in subsection (2) to be excluded or modified if the child’s adopter dies, so that the partner could take a longer period of paid leave. Again, we shall consult on the regulations.