Submission on Maternity Protection (Amendment) Bill 2003

It is understandable that a woman would wish to keep as much leave as possible for after the birth of her baby. In practice, this has lead to expected dates of delivery being manipulated to get around the requirement that four weeks maternity leave must be taken before the end of the week of the expected date of delivery.

The proposed reduction of this period of leave from four weeks to two weeks in Section 3 of the Bill may, therefore, be seen as recognising in legislation what is happening in reality.