Just 2% using Clegg’s joint parental leave

A FLAGSHIP scheme that pays new mothers to go straight back to work has been snubbed by the vast majority of couples.

Only one in 50 of those who qualify has taken up shared parental leave since it was introduced in April 2015.

The scheme was brought in by the Coalition government under pressure from Nick Clegg who was then the leader of the Lib Dems and deputy prime minister. It lets couples split their statutory time off work, allowing new mothers to go back more quickly while the father stays at home with the baby. Fewer than 6,000 couples a year have taken advantage.

Department for Business officials said 285,000 couples qualify each year, but the take-up ‘could be as low as 2 per cent’ – 5,700 couples – even though around half the population have heard of the scheme.

Ministers are now relaunching it with a £ 1.5million publicity campaign intended to help couples joy’ of parenthood.

It is also aimed at closing the gender pay gap. Minister for women Victoria Atkins said: ‘To do this we need to support women to fulfil their potential in the workplace – and giving women the choice to share childcare with their partners is crucial to that.’

Critics of the campaign to push new mothers rapidly back to work condemned the relaunch. Author and broadcaster on the family Jill Kirby, a former director of the Right-leaning Centre for Policy Studies think-tank, said: ‘Shared parental leave is just social engineering.’

She said all the evidence suggests mothers want to use maternity leave to bond with their babies, and there is little enthusiasm from fathers for taking time off work.

Yesterday a minister involved in the relaunch said he will not be taking up his statutory shared leave when he becomes a father in April. Small business minister Andrew Griffiths told Radio 5 Live: ‘It’s because I’m an office holder rather than an employee. Ministers aren’t allowed to.’ He will however take two weeks of paternity leave. ‘share the

‘Social engineering’