10 years on, is shared parental leave failing working families?

Campaigners are saying that shared parental leave is failing working families, as the scheme introduced a decade ago to help new parents share childcare is not benefiting all dads equally. The uptake is heavily skewed towards higher earners, with only 5% of eligible fathers using shared parental leave. The government has paid £40m in shared parental leave payments to families in London, almost 10 times more than in the north-east of England. There is a call for improvements to ensure more dads can benefit from the scheme. The government has committed to reviewing parental leave and wants statutory paternity leave to be a day-one right for all employees. Labour MPs are backing a campaign for more generous parental leave to better align with societal changes.

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