Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, when he plans to publish the Government's response to his Department's July 2019 consultation, Good Work Plan: Proposals to Support Families.

We are currently assessing the responses from the consultation on high-level options for reforming parental leave and pay. We have also conducted a formal evaluation of the Shared Parental Leave and Pay scheme, including large-scale, representative surveys of employers and parents. Together, these will give us a fuller picture of how well the current system of parental leave and pay is working for parents and employers.

We are currently processing and analysing the data that we have collected and will consider this in tandem to the information that we have collected through the consultation. This has taken longer than expected due to the impact of Covid-19 on our research partners and because we have necessarily prioritised work on supporting parents during the pandemic. We will publish our findings in due course.