Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, for what reason maternity pay is not available to people undertaking guardianship orders.

Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP), and Maternity Allowance (MA), are primarily health and safety provisions. They provide a measure of earnings replacement to help women who have worked during their pregnancies to stop working towards the end of them, and in the months after childbirth, in the interests of their own and their babies’ health and wellbeing.

As there is no associated period of pregnancy for people granted guardianship of a child or children they would not be able to make a claim for either SMP or MA in relation to those children.