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Paternity leave changes – what happens with early arrivals?

As reported in October 2023’s Employer Focus, Statutory Paternity Leave will become more flexible from 6 April 2024. Full details are in our previous article, but the ‘headline’ changes from 6 April are as follows:

  • Two weeks of paternity leave can be taken at any time within the child’s first year.
  • Those weeks can either be taken separately or consecutively.
  • By 15 weeks before the birth, expectant fathers need to tell their employer that they plan to take paternity leave, but will only need to specify when they plan to take that leave 28 days in advance of doing so.

The rules which bring about these changes will be in place from 8 March to accommodate the 28 day notice period specified above. From that date, the flexibilities above will also be available to fathers of babies which are expected to be born on or after 6 April 2024, but arrive early. 

New fathers of babies with due dates after 6 April but who are born early can therefore take one or two weeks’ Statutory Paternity Pay and Leave (SPPL) between 8 March and 6 April. But this could cause difficulties for their employers, whose payroll software might not be updated for the new rules until 6 April. 

The advice for employers in this position depends on how much SPPL the new father takes before 6 April:

  • If one ‘block’ of SPPL is taken before 6 April (made up of either one week, or two consecutive weeks), the employer should be able to reclaim Statutory Paternity Pay (SPP) through their software as normal. 
  • If the new father takes two non-consecutive weeks of SPPL before 6 April, it will only be possible to reclaim SPP for one of those weeks before 6 April 2024. The second week’s SPP will have to be reclaimed after 6 April, once HMRC’s systems have been updated for the new tax year. 

Guidance on reclaiming SPP can be found on GOV.UK, along with details of how smaller employers can apply for SPP funding in advance, to avoid being left out of pocket. 

 

This article reflects the position at the date of publication (13 February 2024). If you are reading this at a later date you are advised to check that that position has not changed in the time since.    

 

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