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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to the Answer of 19 October 2022 to Question 63131 on Conditions of Employment: Parents, when the research took place for the (a) Maternity and Paternity Rights Survey, (b) qualitative study of parents who have taken Shared Parental Leave and (c) other surveys of employers and parents.

The 2013 Impact Assessment for Shared Parental Leave (SPL) estimated that take-up would be between 2-8 per cent based on Labour Force Survey analysis that 267,000 employee fathers/partners would be eligible.

HMRC data on the number of individuals in receipt of Shared Parental Pay provides a broad indication of SPL take-up. The SPL evaluation will also include an up-to-date estimate of eligibility and take-up based on survey data. The evaluation will be published in due course.

The fieldwork for the Maternity and Paternity Rights survey took place between Mar-Nov 2019, between Aug 2019 and Feb 2020 for the qualitative study of parents and between Sep 2018 and Feb 2019 for the Management and Wellbeing Practices Survey.