Maternity Leave Explained
Practically everything you need to know about building a maternity policy for your team
6 minute read
Updated April 2024
Note: this is not legal advice, please don’t rely on it!
You’ve built your company from the ground up, recruited your team and harnessed their talent. You believe in what you’re doing and in the people who work alongside you. So what happens when someone in your team tells you they’re expecting?
You're probably happy for them and scared for you in equal measure. It’s a moment of truth.
It’s also a golden opportunity for you as an employer to keep your best talent and look good in the process.
JustParent is all about that opportunity. We've created a way for you to offer great parental leave without the fear of spiralling costs.
But, if JustParent isn't for you yet, we’re still passionate about everyone getting it right. Consider us your new-parent leave fairy.
We want more companies to do new-parent leave right. Consider us your new-parent leave fairy.
To help you unpick what’s legal, what’s possible and what’s exceptional, we take a look at the baseline rights and responsibilities your company or SME has when it comes to developing a maternity policy. To add that extra helpful sparkle, the technical details are broken down into watchouts and bits you really should pay attention to.
First, the legal part
In the UK, a company has four basic obligations when an eligible employee has a baby, covering standard maternity leave, standard maternity pay and basic employee rights during pregnancy and after the birth. These essentially cover how much women are paid, how long they have off and what their rights are.
What’s the UK statutory allowance for maternity leave and pay?
🔑 Key point: women can take up to 52 weeks’ leave.
As an employer, you are legally required to do the following:
1. to allow time off work (Statutory Maternity Leave)
This can vary from a minimum leave period of 2 weeks after the birth to a maximum of 52 weeks off. Remember your employee is also entitled to any annual leave they have built up whilst they are off - this is often added to the end of any stretch of leave. Women can start their maternity leave up to a maximum of 11 weeks before the baby’s due date. Again a watchout here - there are different rules around very premature births, stillbirth and miscarriage.
2. to pay her (Statutory Maternity Pay). Here’s the law at the moment:
Women are entitled to up to 39 weeks of pay while on maternity leave. This is currently set at 6 weeks’ leave paid at 90% of average weekly earnings, followed by 33 weeks of Statutory Maternity Pay, which is either £184.03 a week, or 90% of their average weekly earnings - whichever is lower. Tax and National Insurance are still payable on this. The final 13 weeks of maternity leave are unpaid, unless your own company policy states otherwise - we’ll get onto what your options are here later - and why this matters (spoiler: we think it should).
🔑 Key point: you have to pay your employee for the first 39 weeks they aren’t there, and the government will reimburse you at 92%.
👀 Watchout: check that women are eligible for this pay; if not, you’ll be filling in the SMP1 form instead.
📄 Documents: you’ll need to complete the SMP2 record sheet for HMRC to get reimbursed.
💡 Need to know: the date Statutory Maternity Pay started and the dates of all payments; records of how much Statutory Maternity Pay you’ve reclaimed; and an explanation for any weeks that you did not pay Statutory Maternity Pay.
3. to protect her rights
Concentrate here: as an employer you have a duty to make sure your employee’s basic rights are safeguarded while she is off on leave - including taking any annual leave and returning to work after maternity leave. She might be temporarily out of sight, but you need to make sure she’s not out of mind - and doesn’t feel like she’s been forgotten.
The legal bit:
you are legally obliged to allow paid time off for antenatal care, including but not limited to medical appointments. Antenatal and parenting classes that’ve been recommended by a midwife are also included in this bracket.
whilst on maternity leave, women are still legally protected against unfair treatment, discrimination or dismissal.
a woman has the statutory right to return to the same job and working conditions as they left if they take 26 weeks of maternity leave or less (this period is known as ‘Ordinary Maternity Leave’).
if they return to work within the next 26 week period after that (‘Additional Maternity Leave’) they maintain this right unless it is not reasonably practicable (for instance, if the role is now redundant).
if this is the case, they are entitled to an alternative position with no less favourable terms and conditions than the role they left. This allows you some organisational flexibility whilst safeguarding women’s rights to take their full allowance of maternity leave.
So, for example’s sake: Emma is your Head of HR and she goes off on 52 weeks’ maternity leave. By the time she comes back, you’ve had a rethink and restructured, and your HR functions are now being outsourced. Instead, you offer her a role as Head of Diversity and Inclusion with the same salary, leave and level of responsibility as before. She’s happy, you’re happy, you keep working together for a long time.
🔑 Key point: she’s still your employee. She’s going through a lot right now. Look after her.
👀 Watchout: you can’t sack her or do anything that wouldn’t stand up in court if she wasn’t pregnant.
📄 Documents: none specifically, but you’ll want an effective maternity policy in place.
💡 Need to know: your own maternity policy and your employee’s own terms of employment.
Who’s paying?
As an employer, you are usually entitled to reclaim 92% of employees’ Statutory Maternity Pay from HMRC, and 103% if your business qualifies for Small Employers’ Relief. You can also ask for assistance if you cannot afford to make Statutory Maternity Pay payments through an online application for advance payment from HMRC.
What's the process for employers?
In short: you pay your employee and the government will pay you back. Pay attention here - you need to submit the right paperwork at the right time to ensure this happens.
There are some forms you will need to fill in:
To reclaim the money paid out to employees as Statutory Maternity Pay, you must calculate how much you are due to receive back from HMRC via your payroll software and then include these figures in an Employer Payment Summary, which you send to HMRC alongside your monthly Full Payment Submission.
This should be done by whoever deals with HR or payroll for you.
In addition, you must keep records of all payments to staff on maternity leave via the SMP2 record sheet.
You are responsible for keeping records of the pregnancy and maternity period for HMRC for at least 3 tax years.
You’ll need proof of pregnancy (usually in the form of a copy of the MATB1 form or else a doctor’s note - it’s the employee’s responsibility to provide you with one of these).
If you believe that your employee is not eligible for Statutory Maternity Pay (for instance, if they do not provide proof of pregnancy, or if they have not been working for you long enough) you need to instead complete and give them an SMP1 form within 7 days of making your decision.
They may be eligible for Maternity Allowance instead, a stipend paid directly to them by the government for up to 39 weeks. Maternity Allowance in the UK is currently set at £184.03 a week or 90% of their average weekly earnings, whichever is lower.
Next Steps
In summary - doing maternity right can be a lot to take on.
And this is just a starting point. Both Statutory Maternity Leave and Pay can be enhanced by individual companies. This is where your company maternity policy steps in and where JustParent can help you attract and retain the best talent through gold-standard maternity benefits well beyond the UK standard.
We’ve only covered what’s legal here. But there’s a whole world of what’s possible and what’s exceptional to explore - and reasons why these are worth exploring.
You might not be able to offer everyone on the team a corner office right now, but JustParent offers a solution to help you turbocharge your offering to parents, would-be parents and people who know that fairer employers build better companies to work for.
📖 Note on language
We've chosen our words based on the government's policy playbook to avoid ambiguity - with the caveat that we know that families come in all shapes and sizes. We believe parents are whoever loves and cares for a child. But for the sake of clarity:
'maternity' or 'mother' refers to the pregnant woman - the biological mother (including surrogates)
'paternity' or 'father' can refer to the baby's father; the husband or partner of the mother (or adopter) - this includes same-sex partners; the child’s adopter; or the intended parent (if you’re having a baby through a surrogacy arrangement)
📖 Note on accuracy
We have provided this as a helpful way to navigate the UK rules, but please don’t rely on it to make business decisions. Seek professional advice if you need it.
Also note that the UK rules might change quicker than we can update the information. The top of the page shows when we last updated the information.
If you spot anything that you think we’ve got wrong, or has since changed, please let us know, and you’ll be our bff.