surrogacy. Mrs Kassim was told that she was not entitled to any maternity leave or pay and could only take 13 weeks unpaid parental leave.
Mrs Kassim says, "Obviously no one can live on that and you need time to bond with your children as well and I need longer than 13 weeks to do that."
Mr Healey is Mrs Kassim's local MP and has urged for the "legal loophole" to be closed allowing surrogacy mothers the rights that other mothers, including those who adopt, are entitled to. Mr Healey states that, although there are currently only around 100 children born by surrogate mothers each year in the UK, the numbers are increasing and the law needs to "catch up" with the change in society. Mr Healey adds that mothers whose children are born through a surrogate mother need the same support as other mothers.
The decision of the ECJ, in the case of C-D v S-T ET/2505033/11, could force a change in the law if it is decided that UK legislation is not compliant with European law.
CHANGES TO THE LINKING RULES FOR SSP
30 May 2012
The 104 week linking rule has recently been removed. There is now only a 12 week linking period during which someone will return to Employment Support Allowance (ESA) on the basis of their original claim if they become sick again after returning to work. For Statutory Payments this means that there is no longer a 104 week period during which entitlement to SSP is disallowed due to ongoing ESA entitlement. Once the 12 week linking period has passed, eligibility for SSP will apply in the normal way.
HMRC’s guidance in the E14 helpbook has been updated and the form SSP1 used by employers to refuse SSP has already been amended to show 12 weeks
UNIVERSAL CREDITS AND SSP LINKING
1 February 2013
The CIPP’s policy team raised a concern with the DWP in respect of the current linking provision for benefits and Statutory Sick Pay and whether this would still apply under Universal Credits. The question we raised was: An employee who commences new employment and becomes sick within the first 12 weeks, the current legislation allows the employer to make the employee exempt from SSP and refer them back to DWP for benefits instead. As this legislation refers now to Employment Support Allowance, which will become obsolete and be incorporated into Universal Credits in the future does that mean this linking legislation will also become obsolete? The 12 week linking rule for contributory ESA will continue to apply after UC has been introduced. However, there will be no equivalent linking rule for UC. This means employers will need to continue to ask if an employee has been entitled to ESA in order to determine SSP entitlement, but there will be nothing to prevent the payment of SSP where an employee has previously been entitled to UC only.” This will mean that when Employment Support Allowance becomes obsolete as a single payment the linking will no longer apply. The DWP will advise their colleagues in HMRC to ensure the appropriate guidance is updated. The answer received from the DWP is:
CIPP Policy News Journal
12/04/2013, Page 300 of 362
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