Parental leave legislation ‘sooner rather than later’ as Santos weighs three options

Parental leave legislation will be brought forward “sooner rather than later”, the Minister for Equality, Christian Santos, has said, as he acknowledged the reforms have been in development for years.

Mr Santos said he was considering three different options and was assessing their financial impact on the Government and private sector before settling on a final proposal.

“It needs to be something that works as well as giving equal rights to both men and women in what is the most important part of bringing up a child,” he said.

At present, men have no statutory paternity leave, while women have 14 weeks of statutory maternity leave from an employment perspective but receive 18 weeks' worth of benefits.

Mr Santos said the aim was to bring the employment provisions and benefits into line while ensuring the eventual system was financially sustainable.

“It's always difficult. It's always difficult to give a specific date, especially because I'm the type of person that wants things to happen immediately. I want things to happen yesterday,” he said.

“But there are so many things that are out of my control and there are so many things to consider that seems very simple is never simple enough.”

He said he had initially expected the legislation to move forward earlier, but developments around the UK/EU agreement and treaty had affected the timing.

Mr Santos said the Government had three options under consideration, and was also introducing Jack’s Law which would legislate for two weeks paid leave for parental bereavement.

“A big part of it was also Jack’s Law, which we announced we were going to do, and we were going to do it as part of the parental leave, but I'm just going to do it as its own legislation,” Mr Santos said.

Mr Santos said Jack's Law was “nearly ready”, and the legislation was expected to be ready after the summer.

For parental leave, he said that once a final option had been selected, he would return to discussions with the private sector, including the Gibraltar Chamber of Commerce and the Gibraltar Federation of Small Businesses.

Mr Santos said the financial impact on businesses was a key consideration.

“Remember, a lot of this is the financial impact, not just for government but for the private sector,” he said.

“We need to ensure that we make it something that's feasible and viable for everyone, especially because right now what we offer is just for women and now we're going to offer it for both men and women.”

He said the objective was to establish statutory provisions that would allow men to play a greater role in the early stages of raising a child.

“And I think this is something that men right now cannot enjoy in the same way. So we need to give some statutory provisions.”

Mr Santos also acknowledged criticism over the length of time taken to bring forward the reforms.

“We're trying to equalise and see how we can do that as well. So it's trying to look for both, how the benefit works with what the statutory employment law is. It's not as easy as I thought it would be.”

“And I know I get a lot of flack for it not happening, and it's one of those things that I need to make it work.”

He said the legislation needed to be workable for individuals, Government and businesses before being laid before Parliament.

“It needs to be something that works for everyone,” he said.

The GSD Shadow Minister for Care, Atrish Sanchez, criticised the delays and said the issue had been under discussion since 2019.

Ms Sanchez said statutory maternity leave had not been reviewed since 1996 and said that both its length and earnings should be reconsidered.

“I think that needs to be looked at, both in terms of the length and the earnings, because they're very low and it needs to be more realistic to the cost of living,” she said.

She also called for statutory paid paternity leave and said any wider parental leave system should allow families to decide how leave was divided between parents.

“Because you can have a situation in a family where the mother earns more and she wants to go back to work sooner, or the father earns more and he might want to go back to work,” she said.

“It's important for the family to be in the equity to decide how they want to take the parental leave and for them to have that choice.”

“Right now, that choice is not there. So it’s to provide them equity and choice.”

Ms Sanchez said the Government had been in office since 2011 and that the issue had already been described as being at an advanced stage in 2019.

She acknowledged the financial implications for businesses, particularly smaller companies, but said measures could be introduced to mitigate the impact.

“There's tax measures and exemptions,” she said. “There's help from the state that can be given. Help has to be given for these mitigation measures to be provided to help small businesses.”

Ms Sanchez also criticised delays to Jack's Law, as well as the absence of wider measures for working families in the private sector.

She said the Government should also address wraparound care and affordable childcare, adding that these issues affected families' ability to have children or more children.

“This makes it difficult for people to consider having children or having more children,” Ms Sanchez said.

She also questioned changes to school hours and term times, which she said effectively gave students two additional weeks off school, and whether there had been sufficient consultation with parents.

“It was surveyed in a way, where very few people found out about it,” she said.

“The response rate was very low.”

Ms Sanchez said the Government had made commitments in its manifesto on wraparound care and affordable childcare which had not been implemented before the changes to school hours were made.

“When you make these changes you are affecting working families,” she said.