If an employee on maternity leave is made redundant, does her former employer have a continuing obligation to pay her statutory maternity pay?

Posted in : First Tuesday Q&A NI on 6 November 2018
Chris Fullerton
Arthur Cox
Issues covered:

First and foremost, employers must exercise caution when making an employee who is pregnant or on maternity leave redundant, and ensure that fair and proper procedure is followed.

Statutory maternity pay (‘SMP’) is available to a woman who is or has been an employee under section 160 of the Social Security Contributions and Benefits (Northern Ireland) Act 1992. Therefore, provided that the employee qualified for SMP prior to the redundancy situation arising, her right to receive SMP continues post-termination and for the remainder of the SMP period, For the avoidance of doubt, the SMP period is a maximum of 39 weeks with the first six weeks being paid at 90% of average earnings

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Back to Q&A's This article is correct at 06/11/2018
Disclaimer:

The information in this article is provided as part of Legal-Island's Employment Law Hub. We regret we are not able to respond to requests for specific legal or HR queries and recommend that professional advice is obtained before relying on information supplied anywhere within this article.

Chris Fullerton
Arthur Cox

The main content of this article was provided by Chris Fullerton. Contact telephone number is 028 9023 0007 or email Chris.Fullerton@arthurcox.com

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