Taking holiday prior to maternity leave

[reptile]

My wife and I are expecting our third child.

The due date is June 7th on the MATB1 form.

My wife has 28 days holiday to take.

She would like her first day away from work to be June 3rd, use her holiday up and then start her maternity leave on July 10th.

Work were fully happy with this (prior to them knowing the due date) but have today said after receiving an email confirming the dates;

" Am I reading it right that you are due on 07/06/2015 and want to start Maternity on 13/07/2015? You cannot take holidays in to your Maternity they have to be before the baby is due."

Is this correct, can she not use up her holiday allowance prior to commencing the maternity period?

Any advice you can offer will be gratefully received!

Thank you


Reptile

[tiny]

Re: Taking holiday prior to maternity leave

I think that the employer is obliged to give her maternity leave from the date of birth of the child for 6 weeks which is the problem. If your wife were to take annual leave for the month of may until the due date then run straight into maternity leave that wouldn't be a problem. They may allow her to carry her leave over to the following year and add it to the end of her maternity leave enabling her to stay home with baby a little longer

[Kati]

Re: Taking holiday prior to maternity leave

The Working Mums website has covered this, so you might find the answer there - http://www.workingmums.co.uk/advice-...e-expert.thtml

Can I take holiday leave at the start of maternity leave?: ask the expert


Legally, women on maternity leave have to be allowed to use up their accrued holiday entitlement. This can be either before or after the maternity leave period. However, the right to carry holiday over from one annual leave year to the next depends on the terms of the employment contract with the employer and not the legislation governing maternity leave. Following the Working Time Directive, employees must be allowed to take their accrued holiday and it is illegal to pay holiday as a lump sum.

So, in your case, your employer cannot pay you in lieu of the holidays, they must let you take them. There is no law on whether this has to be before or after your maternity leave. The fact that they sent you a letter stating that you could take it before your leave started strengthens your position so I would suggest that you need to go back to them and insist that you are allowed to take the leave prior to going on maternity leave, unless they can give you a strong business reason for otherwise. Point out that they cannot just pay you for the equivalent of the holiday - the fact that they have included this does indicate that they aren’t quite sure of your rights under maternity leave which again strengthens your negotiating position.

as has netmums - http://www.netmums.com/coffeehouse/p...leave-all.html

While GovUK goes into Maternity Leave in depth here - https://www.gov.uk/maternity-pay-leave/overview
and here - https://www.gov.uk/employers-materni...ve/entitlement

Good luck with the baby

K xx