Fathers who welcome a new baby into their families will be entitled to three weeks of paid paternity leave, the Nationalist Party promised on Thursday as part of its programme should it be returned to government. 

The proposal is one of five announced by the PN aimed at improving the quality of life of families and workers, in an attempt to strike a balance between sustaining the family and leading a healthy lifestyle at the workplace.

PN MEP David Casa said the party was committed to enhancing the work-life balance directive set by the EU and will be introducing 15 working days of paid paternity leave for fathers.

Casa added that the PN would also ensure that two of the four months of parental leave that parents are entitled to take before the time a child turns eight years old should be paid in full to encourage more people to make use of it.

“Unfortunately, hardly any people opt to take their parental leave because it is not paid and families often cannot afford to live on a single income,” he said.

“This is why we are proposing that the government pays for two of the four months of parental leave as a measure to strengthen families and also strengthen the gender gap in employment, wages and pensions.”

The scheme, he added, would be made available to all parents, including same-sex couples and couples who adopt a child.

The party is also proposing the setting up of a fund that will allow self-employed parents to take maternity, paternity and parental leave under the same conditions offered to employed parents, without impacting their take-home pay.

The PN are also seeking to introduce parental bereavement leave for parents who lose a child, allowing them to claim up to two weeks of paid leave.

Election candidate Roselyn Borg Knight explained that the breavment leave would be made available to any parent who loses a child under the age of 18, including parents who experience a miscarriage and lose an unborn child.

Scheme for at-home child minding

The PN also plans on introducing a financial scheme to support the engagement of at-home child minding for employed parents. Coming in the form of a subsidy or tax rebate, the government would cover half the cost of child-minding services for single or two-parent households which are in full-time employment.

The service would be available until a child is 12 years old, or in the case of children with disabilities, until they are 16 years old.