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Over 350,000 mothers and 80,000
Over 350,000 mothers and 80,000 fathers each year are using new
rights to paid maternity and paternity leave. Parents consistently say
their top priority is more choice of whether to stay at home with their
baby in the first year of its life.We will therefore increase paid maternity
leave to nine months from 2007 – worth an extra £1,400 – with the
goal of achieving a year’s paid leave by the end of the Parliament while
simplifying the system for employers.We want to give fathers more
opportunities to spend time with their children, and are consulting on
how best to do this including the option of sharing paid leave.We have
already introduced the right to request flexible working to parents of
children under six and nearly a million parents have benefited.We
need to balance the needs of parents and carers, with those of employers,
especially small businesses.We are consulting on extending the
right to request flexible working to carers of sick and disabled adults as
a priority, and also on whether we should extend the right to parents of
older children.