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Maternity Rights for New Mothers

Any employed woman who is expecting a baby can benefit from the right to both maternity pay and maternity leave.  These rights include:

  • Statutory Maternity Pay or Maternity Allowance for 39 weeks.  Statutory Maternity Pay is paid to a woman by her employer at a level of 90% of her average weekly earnings for the first six weeks of her leave.  After that, she will receive a flat rate or 90% of her average weekly earnings (whichever is lower) for 33 weeks.  Maternity Allowance is paid by the Government at a flat rate or 90% of a woman’s average weekly earnings for all 39 weeks;
  • availability of 52 weeks’ maternity leave for all new mothers, consisting of 26 weeks' Ordinary Maternity Leave (OML) and 26 weeks’ Additional Maternity Leave (AML).  During both OML and AML, employees have the right to all their normal terms and conditions of employment except wages or salary.
  • the right for employers to make reasonable contact with employees on maternity leave;
  • where both the employee and the employer agree, the right for employees to go into work for up to 10 ‘Keeping in Touch Days’ during maternity leave without the employee losing any leave or pay entitlements.

It should be noted that if an employee changes her mind about the date she intends to come back to work from leave, she must give her employer at least 8 weeks’ notice before the new date (or before the date she originally planned to return, if this is earlier).

Guidance

Details of these rights are set out in the Employment Rights Booklet ER 16.  Also useful in terms of the current rights is the Social Security Agency's booklet NIL17A external link, dealing with entitlements to SMP and MA.

Employees

Employers