Maternity rights - working and pregnant

Maternity Pay

For babies due before 1 April 2007

If you qualify for Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) or Maternity Allowance (MA) it will be paid for 26 weeks i.e during your OML period. For babies due on or after 1 April 2007 If you qualify for SMP or MA it will be paid for 39 weeks. As you will also qualify for 52 weeks maternity leave, SMP will be paid during your 26 weeks OML and for 13 weeks of your AML.

SMP

If you are paid through Pay As You Earn (PAYE) with tax and National Insurance deducted by your employer you may be entitled to SMP, as long as you meet the qualifying conditions. SMP is paid by your employer in the usual way. All employers can claim SMP back from HM Revenue and Customs. You are entitled to SMP even if you do not intend to return to work and you cannot be asked to repay it. If you receive extra contractual maternity pay you can only be asked to repay it if it is stated in your contract or agreed with your employer.

Service Condition

To qualify for SMP you must have 26 weeks continuous service by the end of the 15th week before your baby is due. This roughly means that as long as you started the job before you became pregnant, and you have worked for at least a day or part of a day in each week since then, you will meet the service requirement.

Maternity weeks are from Sunday to Saturday. Not all breaks from employment will break your continuous service. Breaks where you were on annual leave, sick leave, parental leave or taking time off for dependents will not break your continuous service. If you leave your job or are dismissed after the 15 th week before your baby is due, you will still be entitled to SMP.

Earnings Condition

To qualify for SMP you must also have earned at least £84 per week on average in the calculation period. The calculation period is the eight weeks, if you are paid weekly, up to and including the 15 th week before your baby is due. If you are paid monthly, the calculation period is usually based on the last two monthly payments received before the end of the 15th week before your baby is due.

To work out the average if you are monthly paid, add up the pay on the payslips, divide by the number of months covered (this will usually be two), multiply by 12 and divide that number by 52, to get a weekly average. Pay can include holiday pay, bonuses, overtime, sick pay and any previous periods of SMP but not Maternity Allowance.