MPs and another bid to boost stay-at-home dads

AN influential group of MPs is to look at ways of encouraging new fathers to stay at home to look after their babies.

Ensuring fathers and mothers share early childcare is the only way to get rid of the gender pay gap, they believe.

The move follows the failure of the Government’s Shared Parental Leave scheme to attract interest from more than a handful of working fathers. The Commons Women and Equalities Committee, led by Tory MP Maria Miller, will consider policy or legislative changes to help fathers ‘fulfil their caring responsibilities’ and examine whether there are ‘social or attitudinal barriers… in the workplace which need to be chal- lenged’. It will then recommend changes to the Government.

Mrs Miller said yesterday: ‘Many fathers want to take a more active role in caring for their children. Our report on the gender pay gap found that investing in policies that support men to share childcare equally, and allow women to continue working, will reap financial benefits as well as reduce the gender pay gap.’

She added: ‘Supporting parents in the workplace is a priority for the Government. Yet it admits that its flagship Shared Parental Leave policy is likely to have a very low take-up rate.’

Laura Perrins, of the Conservative Woman website, said it was clear the committee wants to ‘introduce yet more regulation into employment’. She said: ‘This is likely to reduce employment opportunities and squeeze pay even further.

‘Maria Miller should leave the social engineering alone and let families get on with caring and providing for their children, and leave businesses to get on with providing employment.’

A charity report published today warns of a ‘fatherhood penalty’ as men jettison their careers for less demanding roles that let them spend more time with their children.

The Modern Families Index survey found many fathers ‘face the same barriers to their career progression that mothers have faced for decades’.