Exercising parental rights

Employees exercising their rights to maternity, paternity or adoption leave and pay have the right not to be dismissed for that reason. In addition, a woman has the legal right not to be dismissed or made redundant for pregnancy-related reasons during her pregnancy and for the whole of her maternity leave. She has the right to take maternity leave and to receive either Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) or Maternity Allowance (MA), provided she earns enough to qualify. Similar rights apply to adopting parents, although there is no equivalent MA for adoptive parents who do not earn enough to qualify for Statutory Adoption Pay (see page 54).

The period of SMP, MA and Adoption Pay is 39 weeks.

Only employees can claim the different types of statutory parental leave, including maternity leave. Agency workers, in particular, cannot claim these rights, unless they are employees of the employment agency.

Although agency workers are not entitled to Statutory Maternity Leave (SML), they may qualify for SMP. If they have a directly-employed partner he or she may be able to take the leave under the Shared Parental Leave rules (see page 52), provided they qualify.