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Lord Fox (LD)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 20 May 2026

Debate

Self-employed: Paternity Leave

Contribution

My Lords, we thank the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, for bringing this question up; it is really important. However, it is not just about rights that do not exist; current rights and their take-up is also a really important issue, and I hope the review will look at that. According to the 2025 Unison parental leave survey, there was an 86.3% uptake of maternal leave but only a 31.8% uptake of paternal leave. Paternal leave is just as important—in fact, even more important—because fathers are an important influence. Will the review look at the take-up of existing rights, as well as developing rights of the sort the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, talked about?

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