The EC Parental Leave Directive 96/34/EC of 3rd June 1996 requires Member States to ensure that employers give a minimum of three months unpaid leave to both mothers and fathers after the birth of a child. Adoptive parents of children up to eight years old must have the same right. The Directive was extended to the UK and Northern Ireland by Council Directive 97/75/EC with 15th December 1999 set as the date by which it had to be implemented in the UK and NI.

The Directive is implemented in the UK by Employment Relations Act 1999 sch.4 Part I inserting new sections 76 to 80 in the Employment Rights Act 1996 (see ERA 1996 s.76 et seq) with effect from 15th December 1999 (see Employment Relations Act 1999 (Commencement No 2 and Transitional and Saving Provisions) Order 1999, SI 1999/2830 sch I pt II).

The detail is fleshed out by the Maternity and Parental Leave etc Regulations 1999, SI 1999/3312 made on 10th December 1999, which came into force on 15th December 1999. The regulations set minimum standards of parental leave which automatically apply by law unless an employee's terms of employment provide better terms (the "default provisions" are in Maternity & Parental Leave etc Regs 1999 sch.2).

Under the regulations as originally introduced, parents of children born before 15th December 1999 were not entitled to parental leave. After a court case (R v Secretary of State for Trade and Industry ex p. TUC [2000] IRLR 565) new regulations were introduced to change this - the Maternity and Parental Leave (Amendment) Regulations 2001, SI 2001/4010, which came into force on 10th January 2002.