PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Parental Leave (4 November 2024)

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, how much has been spent on the statutory element of Shared Parental Leave since its inception (a) in total and (b) by (i) geographical area and (ii) industry.

Asked by:
Josh Simons (Labour)

Information provided by employers to HMRC shows that the total value of payments made to individuals in receipt of Statutory Shared Parental Pay was £178.9m between 2014/15 and 2023/24 (the latest year for which full year data is available).

The table below presents a breakdown of the value of payments made to individuals by the region (based on recipient residence). Information on the sector or industry worked in by the recipient of Shared Parental Pay is not available.

Table 1: Total value of payments made to individuals in receipt of Statutory Shared Parental Pay (ShPP) by claimant resident region, 2014/15 to 2023/24

Government Office Region (based on residence of recipient of ShPP)	Total value of Statutory Shared Parental Pay payments
East Midlands	£10,300,000
East of England	£16,200,000
London	£40,800,000
North East	£4,800,000
North West	£15,300,000
South East	£27,500,000
South West	£18,000,000
West Midlands	£10,400,000
Yorkshire and The Humber	£12,200,000
Northern Ireland	£2,900,000
Scotland	£9,900,000
Wales	£5,900,000
Other	£4,600,000

Notes

1. Data collected using HMRC Real Time Information (RTI). RTI is subject to revision or updates
2. Shared Parental Leave and Pay came into force on 1 December 2014 for eligible parents of children due to be born or adopted on or after 5 April 2015.
3. In the 2014/15 and 2015/16 tax year, those receiving Additional Statutory Paternity Pay (ASPP) for children born before 6 April 2015 cannot be distinguished from those claiming ShPP within RTI data. The value of ShPP payments in 2014/15 was less than £2.5m only.

Answered by:
Justin Madders (Labour)
11 November 2024