Statutory Maternity Pay question

RossDargan

My wife is pregnant with our second child (yay:-D) but we are not sure if we will be entitled to SMP - just wondering if anyone can give us some advice.

She worked for one company who sell mortgages but whilst she was on her maternity for the first child they decided to pull out of the UK market. This meant when she finished her she came of maternity she was unemployed. She was made redundant in August, but paid maternity until October.

She has now started a new job (first day today) and is 7 weeks pregnant now. As far as I can tell she has to have 40 weeks of continuous employment by the time she is 15 weeks from the due date. Unfortunately she will only have 37 weeks of employment. Am I correct in thinking this means she is not entitled to SMP.

Thanks for reading!

Ross

honeypop

To qualify for SMP, she must have been "employed by the same employer continuously for at least 26 weeks into the 15th week before the week your baby is due" so basically employed by the same employer since conception. So your wife won't qualify for this.

The alternative is Maternity Allowance, qualification details are here: http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTaxAndBenefits/BenefitsTaxCreditsAndOtherSupport/Expectingorbringingupchildren/DG_10018869

RossDargan

honeypop wrote: »

To qualify for SMP, she must have been "employed by the same employer continuously for at least 26 weeks into the 15th week before the week your baby is due" so basically employed by the same employer since conception. So your wife won't qualify for this.

The alternative is Maternity Allowance, qualification details are here: http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTaxAndBenefits/BenefitsTaxCreditsAndOtherSupport/Expectingorbringingupchildren/DG_10018869

Thats what I thought. The other option is for me to take the maternity but I dont think its something my Wife will want to do (but we give 12months at full pay! its just I work in IT and think it will be career suicide - things change so quickly!).

honeypop

You can't take maternity leave, it's paternity leave for fathers, does your company still give 12 months for fathers? Not seen one that does, maternity packages are sometimes very good but not so for the dads.