The new right, due to come into force from 2011, would apply during the second half of a baby’s first year, if the mother returned to the workplace.
But the government conceded that take-up was likely to be low, with less than one in 16 fathers expected to leave work for a period of full-time parenting.
At present dads are entitled to two weeks’ paid leave and mothers to 52, 39 of them paid.
The move was hailed by Prime Minister Gordon Brown in his speech to the TUC.
“No Tory government has ever given a single day of paternity leave. This Labour government gave men the right to two weeks’ paternity leave,” he told trade union de.
“Now, from April 2011,
we will give fathers the right to take up to three months’ additional paid paternity leave during the second six months of a child’s life, if the mother has returned to work, because Labour believes in giving couples more freedom, dads more rights and children more time with the two people who love them most.”
Extended paternity rights were promised in Labour’s 2005 General Election manifesto alongside a “goal” to extend paid maternity leave to a full year.
Mr Brown said Labour “retain our ambition” to that move although it was not included in yesterday’s proposals, which will now go out to consultation.
The extension of statutory maternity pay from nine months to a year is being touted as the first major victim of the spending squeeze as the government seeks to reduce expenditure.
The additional paid leave would have cost £500m and given up to £1600 to those families eligible.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article