Help full time students get access to a Maternity Allowance

I’ve started a petition to the government - that I would like Portsmouth Uni Union to help me to promote:

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/232609

It essentially says - 

Many full time students who fall pregnant or give birth during their studies, are unable to access statutory maternity pay or allowance. These are one of the few groups of women who are missing out on their maternity rights. Let’s give full time students access to maternity allowance. This also helps their partners (if they have them) - so this isn’t just a women’s issue of course!

The lack of access occurs when a student hasn’t worked in the qualifying period (because they’ve been studying full time) - you can see how that works here (see maternity allowance and statutory maternity pay): 

https://www.staffsunion.com/advice/money/financeguides/parents/

We suggest full time students should automatically have access to maternity allowance or that a special allowance be drawn up to accommodate these cases that provides equivalent support.

At 10,000 signatures, government will respond to this petition

At 100,000 signatures, this petition will be considered for debate in Parliament

If UPU supports this - we could ask other University Unions to support it too - and maybe we can get 100,000 signatures!

The petition closes on 19th May.

Thankyou!

Alice