Currently, a mother or primary adopter is able to end their maternity or adoption leave, or commit to ending it at a future date, and share the untaken leave (up to 50 weeks) with the other parent as shared parental leave.
The Government has announced that it will extend shared parental leave and pay to working grandparents based on the following evidence:
- nearly 2 million grandparents have given up work, reduced their hours or taken time off to help cut down childcare costs;
- more than half of mothers rely on grandparents for childcare when they first go back to work after maternity leave;
- In total, some seven million grandparents are involved in childcare.
The Government will consult on the details of the new system in the first half of 2016 with the aim of bringing legislation into force by 2018.