Paternity Pay
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, how many people claimed statutory paternity pay in each of the last five years.
Answered by Justin Madders
Information provided by employers to HMRC show the number of individuals in receipt of Statutory Paternity Pay (SPP). This data provides a broad indication of Paternity Leave take-up but does not include those that take unpaid paternity leave. The Parental Rights Survey found that 70% of all employee fathers took Paternity Leave.
Table 1: Individuals in receipt of SPP, 2019/20 to 2023/24 (the latest year for which full year data is available)
Year (April to March) | Total |
2019-20 | 208,000 |
2020-21 | 176,400 |
2021-22 | 204,200 |
2022-23 | 195,300 |
2023-24 | 207,600 |
- Data is collected using HMRC Real Time Information (RTI) and is subject to revision.
- Figures are rounded to the nearest hundred.
- Figures are based on the total number of individuals in a given year, irrespective of when the payment first started. Some individuals will be counted across two years.
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