Tag Archives: paternity leave

Lynne Featherstone vs Steve Hilton on maternity pay

By Mark Pack | Mon 17th October 2011 - 7:25 am

From yesterday’s Observer:

In a wide-ranging interview with the Observer, Featherstone said it was vital the coalition delivered on its family-friendly rhetoric … In a forthright attack on some of the advisers shaping government policy, she criticised the role of Adrian Beecroft, a venture capitalist tasked with reporting to the prime minister on how to cut regulation on business. Beecroft is understood to have recommended a U-turn on government policies on shared parental leave and flexible working.

The proposals, outlined in a white paper, would allow couples greater freedom to co-ordinate maternity and paternity leave. A separate proposal would make it

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Posted in News | Also tagged adrian beecroft, eric pickles, george osborne, lynne featherstone, maternity pay, michael gove, nick clegg, olive letwin, rob blackie, steve hilton and theresa may | 1 Comment

Opinion: Sharing maternity leave – our most popular policy since the coalition was formed?

By Rob Blackie | Tue 18th January 2011 - 8:55 am

Yesterday Nick Clegg has announced that couples will be able to share maternity leave. This is a rare example of a policy which is principled, popular and incredibly talkable.

Parents and grandparents, that is most of the population who are over 35 years old, have extremely strong views on childcare and maternity leave. After all it has a huge impact on us, our careers and our relationships with our families.

This is a superb policy for several reasons.

Firstly, it recognises that modern fathers want to spend more time with their children, and are constrained by an incredibly outdated legal framework that implicitly …

Posted in Op-eds | 38 Comments

Nick on paternity leave, Lib Dem poll ratings, and Lembit and Brian

By Stephen Tall | Wed 7th January 2009 - 2:20 pm

There’s an in-depth interview with Nick Clegg in today’s Telegraph – here’s a few highlights:

On his imminent fatherhood and paternity leave

Evangelical about the importance of parental leave, Mr Clegg and his party recently adopted a radical child care policy which would allow new fathers as much as nine months or more off work.

He himself plans to spend every minute of the current official entitlement away from the political vortex when the time comes … Wouldn’t an election spell the end of his plans to take proper paternity leave: the full two weeks off “wiping and cooing” as he puts it?

“Proper?” he splutters. “It’s only two weeks. It should be more. … We’re all agreed that one of the great crises in this country for children, particularly for boys, is a lack or absence of positive male role models. And we’ve got legislation that says you can take two weeks off when the baby’s barely aware of your existence. That’s not good enough.” Lib Dem policy is for parents to be given up to 19 months leave, split between the mother and the father; but could the leader of a political party really take months and months off?

“No, it would be really difficult for me,” Mr Clegg says, “But the problem is that no one feels entitled.

“I’m not going to be sanctimonious about this; people should make their own decisions. “I just feel that if dads don’t get involved with their kids early on in a meaningful way often they don’t remain engaged afterwards. I personally think two weeks is a pathetic amount of parenting.”

On the Lib Dems’ popularity