Maternity pay - the budget

[welshgirl]

Did you all hear the budget has granted mummies 12 months full pay maternity leave??? Here's to project baby as soon as my packet of pills is finished, getting paid for a whole year after having a baby sounds fab to me, and if I time it right, I should be around for my 3 year old to have an at home mummy for the first year of her school life..... sounds good to me, anyone else tempted?

[larlylou]

when does this start?

[Twiglett]

if it sounds too good to be true, it will be too good to be true

can't find that anywhere in the budget speech, will have another look though

[motherinferior]

won't apply to freelancers, sodding grumble grumble whinge....

[Twiglett]

can't find it, can you?

budget speech

[SenoraPostrophe]

try being a freelancer in Spain, motherinferior - 16 weeks at 700E a (calendar) month BUT you have to keep paying your 225E per month contributions. You brits don't know you're born.

[lunavix]

Is that at the £100 a month though? They can't force businesses to pay full pay for 12 months, most only pay it for 12 weeks atm...

[zubb]

yes lunavix I would think its the £100 a week deal - so if it is MI us self-employed types would be able to get it as well (says I desperately saving up so I can take some time off with this one).
would really like to know how they think £100 is enough.

[lunavix]

I was going to say..

I think it should at least be at a full time minimum wage, if not more.

[jasper]

great if you are the one having the baby.
A disaster if you are an employer in a small firm.
Saw a woman on TV recently who says she will never employ women in her firm because of maternity rights. Hard not to see her point.(ie when viewed from her perspective)

[soapbox]

Jasper the cost of maternity pay is refunded from the IR for small employers. There is still an impact on small employers as having to hire temps to cover mat leave is usually slightly higher than permanent employee costs,and there are likely to be small increases in training costs.

The IR refund the mat leave at 105% percent of the actual cost to allow a small margin for these costs so that the effect is not likely to be too significant.

[jasper]

soapbox I am a small employer and have had to learn all this stuff.
It is not about the money it is about the disruption, not just to work but to other people's families.

At our work (five staff) it is virtually impossible to replace a colleague for a period of a few months. I am currently working full time because my job sharing colleague is on mat leave indefinitely (7m so far) and we could not get anyone to take her place so I have had to increase my hours.
I do not resent her at all - it
is every woman's prerogative to take off as much time as she wants. But it is having massive repercussions on me and my family.

The new mat arrangements might be family friendly to to family with the new baby but in our situation another family (mine) is suffering.

[Caligula]

Well that's how it always is when social change happens. Someone always suffers.

When women first started going into the workforce in large numbers, men's wages dropped (because the pool of workers was bigger - basic supply and demand economics).

When the spinning Jenny was brought in, scores of workers rioted because it put them out of work - they became obsolete overnight.

That's progress.