Ian Murray will be the first minister to take the full two-week entitlement. But he’s wrong to say it’s ‘culture’ preventing other dads doing the same

The start of a pregnancy is always a time of some uncertainty, but when my partner and I learned we were expecting our second child last year I was faced with a question I hadn’t experienced with our first: would I be able to take any paternity leave? The nature of my work involves working contract-to-contract and I was due to start at a new organisation within days. Britain’s current paternity leave system, fundamentally unchanged since it was implemented in 2003, only entitles fathers or other co-parents to leave if they have been with the same employer since the pregnancy began.

The exclusionary nature of paternity leave in the UK has felt like a long-neglected issue in our politics, leading to the emergence of new campaigns such as the Dad Shift. So the news that the Scottish secretary, Ian Murray, will be the first cabinet minister to take full paternity leave – a decision signed off by the prime minister – is a welcome and overdue indication that the people running our country at least have some understanding of the realities facing new parents today.

Tommer Spence is a researcher and freelance writer