{
  "meta": {
    "schema": "statbook-api/1",
    "release_version": "3.0.0",
    "compiled_at": "2026-09-21T00:00:00Z",
    "generated_at": "2026-09-28T09:07:46Z",
    "attribution": [
      "© Crown and database right. Derived from content available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 from legislation.gov.uk.",
      "Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0."
    ],
    "docs": "https://statbook.co.uk/docs/",
    "signing": {
      "scheme": "minisign",
      "public_key": "RWSPzbJEmAXVEvTqYZ8O9iHuOcOUii5lCNZM5t9bdoQh4ZnwKsxk/+bd",
      "key_id": "12D5059844B2CD8F",
      "verify": "https://statbook.co.uk/assurance/#verify"
    }
  },
  "figure": {
    "id": "employment.leave.maternity.ordinary_weeks",
    "name": "Ordinary maternity leave: weeks",
    "category": "employment",
    "jurisdiction": "GB",
    "unit": "weeks",
    "value_type": "count",
    "currency": null,
    "cadence": null,
    "source_type": "si",
    "values": [
      {
        "value": 26,
        "value_minor": null,
        "effective_from": "2003-04-06",
        "effective_to": null,
        "announcement_date": null,
        "enacted_date": null,
        "instrument_made": true,
        "terminal_kind": null,
        "status": "corroborated",
        "sources": [
          {
            "role": "legislation",
            "citation": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2002/2789/made (SI 2002/2789 reg 8(a): \"In regulation 7 (duration of maternity leave periods)- (a) in paragraph (1), for “eighteen weeks” substitute “26 weeks”\"; in force 24 November 2002, reg 1(1), having effect only in relation to employees whose expected week of childbirth begins on or after 6 April 2003, reg 2(1))",
            "uri": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2002/2789/made",
            "retrieved": "2026-09-11T00:15:55Z",
            "content_hash": "sha256:211d87df6ee78afdb038435f33962f786cd8b9c57a067b5584ad6183f2e46c63",
            "content_hash_of": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2002/2789/made/data.xml"
          },
          {
            "role": "guidance",
            "citation": "https://www.gov.uk/maternity-pay-leave (under \"Leave\": \"Statutory Maternity Leave is 52 weeks. It's made up of: Ordinary Maternity Leave - first 26 weeks Additional Maternity Leave - last 26 weeks\")",
            "uri": "https://www.gov.uk/maternity-pay-leave",
            "retrieved": "2026-07-29T15:05:08Z",
            "content_hash": "sha256:728dd9d923c0cc64dd79373a78cec6e2886c91437c3e1325de31dc123cbf49fd"
          }
        ],
        "verified": {
          "guidance": "2026-09-21T10:07:35Z",
          "legislation": "2026-09-11T00:15:55Z"
        },
        "last_verified": "2026-09-11T00:15:55Z"
      },
      {
        "value": 18,
        "value_minor": null,
        "effective_from": "2000-04-30",
        "effective_to": "2003-04-05",
        "announcement_date": null,
        "enacted_date": null,
        "instrument_made": true,
        "terminal_kind": "superseded",
        "status": "single_source_A",
        "sources": [
          {
            "role": "legislation",
            "citation": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1999/3312/made (SI 1999/3312 reg 7(1) as made: \"Subject to paragraphs (2) and (5), an employee's ordinary maternity leave period continues for the period of eighteen weeks from its commencement, or until the end of the compulsory maternity leave period provided for in regulation 8 if later\"; in force 15 December 1999, reg 1, Part II — which contains regulation 7 — having effect only for employees whose expected week of childbirth begins on or after 30 April 2000, reg 3(1))",
            "uri": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1999/3312/made",
            "retrieved": "2026-09-11T00:15:43Z",
            "content_hash": "sha256:3487776b83ad7f393327bb710863224f075f6c34ba2a7d4917f1f331fd5f113d",
            "content_hash_of": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1999/3312/made/data.xml"
          }
        ],
        "verified": {
          "legislation": "2026-09-11T00:15:43Z"
        },
        "last_verified": "2026-09-11T00:15:43Z"
      }
    ],
    "derivation": null,
    "invariants": [],
    "lineage": [],
    "definitions": [
      {
        "from": null,
        "to": null,
        "text": "The ordinary maternity leave period: 26 weeks from its commencement, or until the end of the compulsory maternity leave period in regulation 8 if that is later (regulation 7(1) of the Maternity and Parental Leave etc. Regulations 1999, prescribing the period for the entitlement in Employment Rights Act 1996 s.71). The first of the two periods that make up statutory maternity leave.",
        "instrument": "Maternity and Parental Leave etc. Regulations 1999 reg 7(1)"
      }
    ],
    "applicability": {
      "basis": "event_date",
      "note": "Commences on the date the employee notifies under regulations 4 and 6, or earlier on the day after a pregnancy-related absence or the day after childbirth (reg 6(1)-(2)), and runs 26 weeks from that day — so it attaches to childbirth, not to a tax year or a pay period. Regulation 7(2) extends it where a statutory prohibition keeps the employee from working, and regulation 7(5) ends it at a dismissal. SI 2002/2789 reg 8(a) substituted the words and came into force on 24 November 2002 (reg 1(1)), but its regulation 2(1) gives the amendments in regulations 5 to 11 effect \"only in relation to employees whose expected week of childbirth begins on or after 6th April 2003\" — which is the date this record carries. The eighteen weeks before it date from 30 April 2000, the date regulation 3(1) of the 1999 Regulations gives Part II effect from, not from the 15 December 1999 commencement.",
      "article": "Maternity and Parental Leave etc. Regulations 1999 regs 3(1), 4, 6(1)-(3), 7(1), 7(2), 7(5); SI 2002/2789 regs 1(1), 2(1), 8(a); Employment Rights Act 1996 s.71"
    },
    "scope_note": "26 weeks, and it is the FIRST half of statutory maternity leave, not the whole of it: the second half is `employment.leave.maternity.additional_weeks`, also 26 weeks, and the 52-week total is the derived `employment.leave.maternity_weeks`. Maternity PAY runs 39 weeks (`employment.smp.paid_leave_weeks`), so pay outlasts this period and stops part-way through the additional one. The first two weeks after childbirth inside it are compulsory and cannot be waived (`employment.leave.compulsory_maternity_weeks`). Regulation 7(2) can make the period longer where a statutory prohibition on working outlasts it, and regulation 7(5) ends it early on dismissal, so 26 is the ordinary length rather than an invariable one.",
    "notes": "A derivation, not a carry, and deliberately so: the carry route is the one that fails here. SI 2002/2789 reg 8(a) wrote only the words \"26 weeks\" into paragraph (1), and `locate` reports those two words satisfied by three sibling provisions of the host (`regulation-7-1`, `regulation-7-4`, `regulation-18-1-b`), so no single token set can be both unique in the host and present in the setter — which is why this row was refused on 2026-09-11 and its sibling shipped alone. A derivation needs no host locator: it reads the amending instrument's own substituted words. What it needed was `Amendment.is_count` widened to read an integer written as a number word and followed by its unit noun, because `_COUNT`'s bare digits matched neither \"eighteen weeks\" nor \"26 weeks\" (D18 follow-up, 2026-09-14). The eighteen weeks it replaced are attested by the instrument's own for-text and dated from the 1999 Regulations' as-made bytes.",
    "record_version": 3
  },
  "receipt": {
    "record_hash": "sha256:7c994a1b871a8091211987fbc75a6eb6ba4cffe1d8acce8f69106126cea834cd",
    "record_hash_of": "the `figure` object, serialized as UTF-8 JSON with 2-space indent, ensure_ascii=false and a trailing newline",
    "release_version": "3.0.0",
    "manifest": "https://statbook.co.uk/v1/releases/3.0.0/manifest.json",
    "record_url": "https://statbook.co.uk/v1/figures/employment.leave.maternity.ordinary_weeks.json",
    "sources": [
      {
        "role": "legislation",
        "citation": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2002/2789/made (SI 2002/2789 reg 8(a): \"In regulation 7 (duration of maternity leave periods)- (a) in paragraph (1), for “eighteen weeks” substitute “26 weeks”\"; in force 24 November 2002, reg 1(1), having effect only in relation to employees whose expected week of childbirth begins on or after 6 April 2003, reg 2(1))",
        "uri": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2002/2789/made",
        "retrieved": "2026-09-11T00:15:55Z",
        "content_hash": "sha256:211d87df6ee78afdb038435f33962f786cd8b9c57a067b5584ad6183f2e46c63",
        "content_hash_of": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2002/2789/made/data.xml"
      },
      {
        "role": "guidance",
        "citation": "https://www.gov.uk/maternity-pay-leave (under \"Leave\": \"Statutory Maternity Leave is 52 weeks. It's made up of: Ordinary Maternity Leave - first 26 weeks Additional Maternity Leave - last 26 weeks\")",
        "uri": "https://www.gov.uk/maternity-pay-leave",
        "retrieved": "2026-07-29T15:05:08Z",
        "content_hash": "sha256:728dd9d923c0cc64dd79373a78cec6e2886c91437c3e1325de31dc123cbf49fd"
      }
    ],
    "verified": {
      "guidance": "2026-09-21T10:07:35Z",
      "legislation": "2026-09-11T00:15:55Z"
    },
    "last_verified": "2026-09-11T00:15:55Z"
  }
}