Experts have criticised a “lost decade” of progress on parental rights after Guardian research suggested that fewer than one in 60 public sector workers are sharing leave with their partners when they have a baby.
Ten years after the introduction of shared parental leave in the UK, the policy’s architects said it had failed to deliver on its promise of “culture change” and called for bold measures necessary to allow more men – including middle- and lower-earners – to spend time with their babies.
New data obtained by the Guardian reveals that in the past five years just one in every 64 requests for parental leave in four of the UK’s biggest public sector employers were for shared parental leave, which gives parents the right to split up to 52 weeks of leave, including up to 39 weeks of statutory shared parental pay.
Freedom of information requests made by the Guardian show that just 1.55% of parental leave requests made at those employers in the last five years were for shared parental leave (SPL).
From 274,755 requests for parental leave across NHS England, Scotland and Wales, HMRC, the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Work and Pensions between 2020 and 2025, just 4,264 were for SPL.
Former Lib Dem leader, Jo Swinson, who introduced the 2015 policy in the House of Commons when she was the minister for employment relations, said low take-up of shared parental leave in public bodies was “disappointing” and blamed successive Tory governments.
“It’s definitely a policy that hasn’t achieved its potential, partly because it hasn’t had the kind of the backing, the energy, the encouragement of a government that believed in it,” said Swinson.
Campaigners and policy shapers have long argued that the shared parental leave policy is a failure, with a key study from the University of Bath last year finding the policy has “fallen flat”. Since its introduction, neither the uptake nor the length of paternal leave taken has increased, said researchers. The last Conservative government’s 2023 evaluation of SPL found that only 1% of eligible mothers and 5% of eligible fathers used it.
Chart showing statutory shared parental pay
A growing body of evidence also suggests that shared parental leave has become the preserve of higher earners concentrated in the south-east of England. Analysis of HMRC data by campaign group the Dad Shift, reveals that 95% of shared parental leave in 2024-25 was claimed by fathers in the UK’s top half of earners, those making more than the average salary of £37,800 a year.
HMRC data reveals a consistent decline in the share of SPL going to the bottom 50% of earners almost every year since it was created. While around one in 10 claims for shared parental leave were made by average- or low-paid dads in 2015, the figure is now closer to one in 20.
Chart shows share of payments going to the bottom half of earners is in decline
“A lost decade on, it’s clear shared parental leave is good for a handful of wealthier families in the south-east but just doesn’t work for most working fathers and non-birthing parents,” said George Gabriel, co-founder of the Dad Shift.
“In the past decade, who gets time with their new babies has become a clear class issue, with normal blokes priced out of those early weeks and months with their babies, despite a mountain of evidence showing that proper paternity leave is not just good for dads, but mums and babies too.”
The government’s launch of an 18-month review of the UK’s parental leave system in July was hailed as a “watershed moment” by the House of Commons women and equalities select committee, but MPs warned that “tinkering around the edges of a broken system will let down working parents”.
The minister for employment rights, Kate Dearden, acknowledged the current “parental leave system needs improving” and pointed to the review and to measures in the workers’ rights bill that will make paternity leave a day-one right. “No parent should feel they cannot spend meaningful time with their children, and supporting them to do so is essential,” she said.
Swinson said a key problem with the current policy was the requirement for women to “give up” some of their maternity leave, and a lack of ringfenced time for dads to spend with their children, and urged the government to implement “take it or leave it” time off work for dads.
“The government has to be bold,” she said. “Let’s not have an incremental tweak. Let’s recognise that this hasn’t moved for 10 years – we need a leap at this point.”
Baroness JoJo Penn, who worked with Theresa May on the introduction of the policy from 2010, and sought an amendment to Labour’s flagship workers’ rights bill to increase statutory paternity leave from two to six weeks at 90% of a father’s salary, said: “Ten years on, it’s clear shared parental leave is not delivering on its original aims. Around half a million new parents every year shouldn’t have to wait to be able to have both parents access proper leave when they have a baby.”
“The case for change is overwhelming, and at the moment I worry that the government has another year for its review but we won’t get any real change at the end of it,” she said.
