The Government's proposed new Work and Families Bill has received mixed reaction. Critical acclaim in some quarters, enragement in others. Under the scheme – unveiled by Trade Secretary Alan Johnson and instigated by predecessor Patricia Hewitt before her post election switch to Health – men, who are currently allowed two weeks' paid paternity leave, will be entitled to three months and receive £106 a week. This will be increased to a paid period of six months by the end of this parliament, says the Government.

New mothers now receiving £106 a week maternity pay from the State for six months will have this increased to nine months from April 2007. But if a mother returns to work when her child is six months old, the father will be able to claim six months' additional paternity leave. The first three months of this will be at the £106 a week rate that would have gone to the mother. However, fathers of families where the mother chooses to stay at home and care for her baby full-time will have no right to extended paternity leave.

The TUC welcomes the Bill. "It's a significant step along the road to making work family-friendly," said General Secretary Brendan Barber. "The law is beginning to recognise that modern fathers want to play a proper role in caring for their children. New parents will relish the prospect of being able to spend more time at home with their young babies. Similarly, people at work with caring responsibilities will appreciate the chance of a greater work/life balance that the new right to request flexible working will bring.

"The Bill will also give many low paid and part-time workers important new holiday rights," added Mr Barber. "Three million people will now get more time off work." And he went on: "But today's measures are not the end of the road. We look forward to seeing paid maternity leave extended to a year, and the Government needs to look more imaginatively at moves to help both mothers and fathers."

Caring for young children

Another firm supporter of the consultation document on improving choice and flexibility for families is the national childcare charity Daycare Trust, whose Policy and Campaigns Manager, Daniela Reale, said: "The first year of a child's life is a crucial period in its development. We welcome the proposals, which will give families greater flexibility over how they manage their work and caring responsibilities when children are very young.

"However, maternity and paternity leave need to be paid at adequate levels to prevent families falling into poverty while they care for very young children. To give parents greater choice in the crucial first year, payment for both maternity and paternity leave should be at 90% of earnings for the first six weeks and then at minimum wage levels for the rest leave. Research demonstrates the benefits of paid maternity leave in reducing infant mortality, improving children's and mothers' health and improving breast-feeding rates."

Daycare Trust recommends that the first six months of leave should be exclusively the right of the mother, particularly in the light of World Health Care Organisation and Department of Health guidelines on breastfeeding for the first six months of a child's life. And they are now also urging the Government to consider calculating the six months maternity leave as starting from the time of birth, rather than from the time of the start of leave before the birth of the child, in line with this research and guidance.

Business leaders are not so receptive to the proposed scheme saying that it will cost employers millions of pounds to replace staff they will lose for months, and that taxpayers will be burdened with new costs. Small firms complain of the huge costs in time, effort and money of replacing workers who go on maternity or paternity leave. And many fear chaos as individuals try to maximise their benefits and time off work under rules which, they believe, appear to allow a large leeway for abuse.

Can changes be business-friendly?

The Federation for Small Businesses believe that, although "appreciating this is family-friendly legislation, it is not so business-friendly," and that "the complexity will cause problems."

This statement is backed by John Cridland, deputy director of the employers' network, Confederation of British Industry. Reacting to the Bill which, in his opinion, gives parents some of the most favourable family-friendly rights in the world, he commented: "Businesses were willing to support the Government's plans to extend maternity and flexible working rights provided the inevitable administrative burden was shared, but employers are now guessing as to whether they will be able to hand back to the Government the burden of administering maternity pay.

"The Government cannot have its cake and eat it," he added. "If it is genuinely committed to better regulation it must observe its own 'one-in-one-out' philosophy in this major policy area. Smaller businesses, in particular, should not be ignored. They need to see a reduction in the endless stream of administration burdens being imposed upon them." He added that "paternity leave rules will put considerable pressure firms to match their occupational maternity pay with paternity pay."

A final note from TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber… "Employer organisations need to be careful. Their opposition to fathers' rights is sending the message that they value their male staff more than their female employees."