Rights during leave

An employee on maternity leave, adoption leave, paternity leave or SPL is entitled to all their normal contractual and statutory employment rights except remuneration (wages). The contractual right to wages is replaced by a right to statutory maternity, paternity, shared parental pay or adoption pay, or by any enhanced contractual entitlement. Employees must benefit from any pay rises and improvements to terms and conditions awarded during the leave period.

Childcare vouchers bought under a salary-sacrifice scheme are “wages”. This means that employees have no right to receive the vouchers while on maternity leave (Peninsula Business Services v Donaldson [2016] UKEAT/0249/15/DM).

Employer pension contributions must continue throughout the paid leave period of maternity, paternity, adoption or SPL (whether pay is statutory or contractual) and must be based on pay before the leave started. Employee pension contributions will be based on the employee's actual pay during the leave period. Pension contributions usually stop during periods of unpaid leave.

The whole leave period (paid and unpaid) must be taken into account to assess length of service for occupational pension purposes (Boyle v EOC [1998] IRLR 717).

Men and women at risk of redundancy during maternity, adoption or shared parental leave have enhanced rights to be offered a suitable available vacancy (see page 433, Chapter 11).

There is protection from all forms of discrimination and harassment during this period (see Chapter 7). There is also protection from automatically unfair dismissal and detriment (see Chapter 10).