Cambridge parents have returned to demand longer paternity leave, six months after their first colourful protest at the city council. This time, the campaign prop was a nappy emblazoned with the message: “Two weeks is sh*t”.
Parents and babies gathered outside Mandela House on 25 September as part of a nationwide “change-in” organised by The Dad Shift ahead of the October Budget. The Cambridge group also handed a letter to council leader Cllr Katie Thornburrow, asking her to discuss improving paternity leave for council employees.
Cambridge City Council currently offers two weeks, while campaigners point to Islington and Ealing councils, which offer six and eight weeks respectively at full pay. The Dad Shift wants fathers and other non-birthing parents to receive six weeks of properly paid leave.
Six months on
In March, East Anglia Bylines reported on Cambridge parents arriving at Mandela House carrying milk, flowers and eggs – all chosen because they lasted longer than the UK’s statutory two-week paternity leave. Six months later they are back, but the law has changed in the meantime.
The Employment Rights Act 2025 was a wide-ranging package of reforms intended to strengthen workers’ rights as part of the government’s Plan to Make Work Pay. Among other changes, it made paternity leave a day-one employment right from 6 April 2026. Previously, employees generally needed 26 weeks’ continuous service to qualify.
The government estimates that another 32,000 fathers and partners became eligible as a result. But while the Act substantially widened access to paternity leave, it stopped short of the more extensive reform sought by campaigners and a cross-party group of MPs. The maximum entitlement remained two weeks, while the 26-week qualifying period for Statutory Paternity Pay was unchanged.
That pay is currently £194.32 a week or 90% of average weekly earnings, whichever is lower.
‘I couldn’t imagine needing to tear myself away’
Cambridge father Timur Jack-Kadioglu experienced the eligibility problem before the law changed. Having recently rejoined his employer, he did not qualify for statutory paternity leave and instead negotiated annual and unpaid leave. His partner and newborn son spent their first week in hospital following complications.
“I’m so grateful that we were able to take the financial hit,” he says, adding that he “couldn’t imagine what it would have been like needing to tear myself away from my partner and son just one week after arriving back home”.
The April reform should prevent someone in his circumstances being denied leave because they have recently started a job. But it would not necessarily solve the financial problem because the service requirement for statutory pay remains.
George Gabriel, co-founder of The Dad Shift, says this particularly disadvantages lower-income families. “Raising your children shouldn’t be some luxury only the rich can afford,” he says. “The Government needs to act now and make paternity leave longer, and more generous, so that new families can thrive.”
MPs wanted the government to go further
In June 2025, the cross-party Commons Women and Equalities Committee concluded that the UK had “one of the worst leave offers in the developed world for fathers and other parents”.
It said the two-week maximum was “completely out of step with how most couples want to share their parenting responsibilities” and recommended increasing statutory paternity leave incrementally to six weeks during this Parliament.
The government did not adopt that recommendation in the Employment Rights Act. Instead, it said the length and generosity of paternity leave would be considered through its wider Parental Leave and Pay Review.
The committee welcomed the review but was disappointed there was no firm commitment to longer, better-paid leave. Chair Sarah Owen warned that “tinkering around the edges” would let families down. The review is due to conclude in early 2027.
What would six weeks mean for the East?
The Dad Shift argues that better paternity leave could bring economic as well as social benefits. Its forthcoming Fatherhood, Place and Class report uses ONS population data and economic modelling to estimate the effect of extending paternity leave to six weeks at the average UK salary.
It estimates that 64,450 new parents in the East of England could benefit each year, with a modelled annual economic gain of £260.5m. Those figures are projections rather than measured effects of an existing scheme.
For Cambridge campaigners, the argument they made in March has therefore changed – but not disappeared. The government has widened access to paternity leave, but the statutory entitlement itself remains two weeks.
Only the props have changed.
This article is based on a press release from Cambridge Dad Shift, compiled with assistance from AI tools and edited by East Anglia Bylines.
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