Commentary on Sections Part 2: Shared Rights to Leave and Pay Section 167ZV: Extent of entitlement and when payable: birth
Subsection (1) of section 167VZ provides for the Department to make regulations to determine the extent of a person’s entitlement to statutory shared parental pay in respect of a child, and when it is to be paid.
Under subsections (2) and (3), the extent of a person’s entitlement to statutory shared parental pay cannot exceed the length of the maternity pay period (currently 39 weeks) less the number of weeks that maternity allowance or maternity pay is payable until the mother’s return to work or the number of weeks by which the maternity pay period or maternity allowance period has been reduced (where the mother reduces these periods before returning to work).
Subsection (6) is to ensure that where two people are both entitled to statutory shared parental pay in respect of the same child, the total number of weeks taken by both does not exceed the number of weeks calculated under subsection (2).
Subsection (7) is to ensure that payments of statutory shared parental pay cannot be made to a person after a prescribed period. Subsection (8) secures that no payment of statutory shared parental pay may be made before the end of the mother’s maternity pay period.
Subsection (9) allows for provision enabling a person who is entitled to statutory shared parental pay to vary the period or periods during which that person intends to claim the pay without varying the overall amount the person intends to take, provided certain conditions are satisfied. These conditions are specified in subsection (10). They require the intending claimant to give notice of intention to vary to the person who will be liable to make the payment. The notice must satisfy certain prescribed conditions as to time, form and content.
Subsection (11) makes clear that regulations may provide for a person who is entitled to statutory shared parental pay to vary the number of weeks for which he or she intends to claim. In order to do so he or she must, in accordance with paragraph (12), notify the person liable to make the payment of the extent to which he or she and another person have used pay entitlement to date and the extent to which both individuals plan to use it in future. The consent of the other person must be obtained and the notice must adhere to certain conditions as to timing, form and content.
Subsection (13) specifies that a person’s entitlement to statutory shared parental pay under sections 167ZU and 167ZV is not affected by the birth of more than one child as a result of the same pregnancy.