Additional Paternity Leave provided very limited additional rights to a very few new fathers.
Additional Paternity Leave Regulations 2010, implemented by the Gordon Brown government in April 2010 remained in place until replaced by Shared Parental Leave (for babies due from 5 April 2015). The intention was that the father or partner should be able to take up maternity leave (and statutory pay) unused by the mother when she returned to work. Complex qualifying conditions, combined with pay at statutory rates and inflexibility in when and how the leave could be taken, resulted in very low take up – estimated at 1.4% of new fathers in 2012-13.