Reconciling work and family life through flexible working is one of the features of the employment guidelines, which EU Member States have agreed and are required to take into account in their employment policies. The fourth pillar recognises the problems women experience in the work place and aims to reconcile professional and family life through more flexible working arrangements, such as developing policies on career breaks, parental leave and part-time work, which can benefit both the employees and employers. This Government has gone some way to introduce legislation to protect UK workers and support our aim of promoting family friendly employment. The Regulations strike the right balance between the need for effective legislation and ensuring business is not subject to unnecessary burdens. Our package of family-friendly rights in the Employment Relations Act provides decent standards and rights at work to help people balance their work and family commitments.
Parental leave is a significant new right.
There are special provisions for parents of disabled children. Parents should not have to choose between being a good parent or holding down a job. Our parental leave scheme achieves a fair and sensible balance between the needs of the business and of the workforce. We have guaranteed minimum standards, but we want employers to go beyond these standards where they can and to agree more flexible schemes where they can. We have also improved and simplified maternity rights , increasing ordinary maternity leave from 14 to 18 weeks, potentially affecting over 200,000 women in Scotland and reducing the qualifying period for additional maternity leave from 2 years to 1, potentially benefiting over 80,000 women.