News

Slow burn – UK government launches parental leave review

02 July 2025

Key takeaways

The UK government opens a far reaching review into parental leave and pay, including maternity, paternity and shared parental leave.

It wants to improve support for working families, while growing the economy and removing barriers to opportunity.

The review is expected to last 18 months, so there won’t be immediate changes to the existing framework.

When it took office last year, the government said it would review the parental leave framework to ensure that the system supports working parents. The government published the terms of reference for the review and a call for evidence on 1 July. At this stage there are no specific proposals for reform. The government is seeking to understand what the objectives of a parental leave and pay system should be and how it could achieve those objectives at a time of financial constraint. The review will allow the government to develop a roadmap for potential reform.

The UK’s parental leave framework has grown over time, resulting in a complex system that does not operate holistically.

On 1 July the government published terms of reference for a review of the parental leave and pay system, including maternity, paternity, adoption and shared parental leave and pay. This aims to take a step back and ask what objectives a parental leave system should deliver, establish how the current framework could be adapted to meet those objectives and identify a roadmap for change.

Objectives

The review identifies four key objectives for a parental leave system:

Protecting maternal health by allowing women sufficient time away from work at an appropriate rate of pay;
Supporting economic growth by enabling parents to remain in work after starting a family;
Giving babies and young children the best start in life; and
Allowing parents to choose how to look after their children, with flexibility to balance work and childcare needs.

The government recognises that these objectives may evolve during the review. Any reforms must be fair for different types of parents and for different types of employment status, while supporting the government’s child poverty strategy. However, the costs and benefits of reform for government and employers need to be balanced and reflect current financial constraints.

Call for evidence

The first part of the review is a call for evidence seeking views on the objectives and whether the current parental leave framework supports them. In particular, the government asks whether there are additional objectives that should be included as part of the review and about the relative importance of each objective.

Next steps

The review is expected to take 18 months and lead to a roadmap for potential reforms.
The initial call for evidence closes on 26 August 2025.
It is clear that there won’t be significant changes to the parental leave framework while the review progresses, although the government intends to bring the new right to extended paternity leave for bereaved partners into force in 2026.

Authored by Ed Bowyer, Stefan Martin, and Alice Whitehead.