Additional Paternity Leave and Pay

Government announced on 14 September 2009 its intention to introduce Additional Paternity Leave and Pay for fathers of children due on or after 3 April 2011, and promised there would be consultation.

You can now read the consultation document on the website for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS).

Additional Paternity Leave and Pay consultation – full details (Opens in a new window)

See below for an overview of how the proposed changes will affect employers.

What does this mean for employers?

In most cases, Additional Paternity Leave and Pay (APL& P) will become payable from 2011-12.

However, there may be some claims before the start of 2011-12, at the earliest from November 2010. This would apply in the highly exceptional circumstances where a baby, due in April 2011, is born prematurely, the mother dies in childbirth, and the father claims APL&P early. The number of such cases is likely to be very small.

Commercially produced payroll software is not expected to be in place to help employers with the small number of early cases in 2010-11. Instead HMRC will provide guidance and an electronic calculator on its website, as well as a helpline calculation and advice service (as it does now for the other Statutory Payments).

The Employer Annual Return (forms P35 and P14) for 2010-11 will not be updated to allow for reporting cases of Additional Statutory Paternity Pay (ASPP). Instead employers will be asked to report ASPP entries for 2010-11 in the existing SPP boxes.

Extension of Statutory Maternity Pay and Statutory Adoption Pay

No decision has been taken to extend Statutory Maternity Pay and Statutory Adoption Pay entitlement beyond the current 39 weeks.

Responses to previous consultations

Employers wanting to know the likely rules in advance can look at the Government responses to previous consultations on this topic. These can be found at:

Read the full announcement of Government’s intention to introduce APL&P from April 2011 on the website for BIS New Rights for Families (Opens new window)