Loose Women panellist Stacey Solomon has revealed she won’t be taking a lengthy break after giving birth, as she won't be receiving any maternity pay.
Speaking on The Chris Evans Breakfast Show, the 29-year-old star admitted that she was worried about taking time off as a self-employed woman in the TV industry.
‘I’m self-employed so if I don’t work, I don’t get paid,’ she explained.
‘In this industry you can only earn while you’re earning, and it might be a situation that I have work now but in six months time I might not,’ she continued. ‘I will carry on working.’
Stacey already has two children, Leigh and Zachary, aged six and 10, from a previous relationship, while her partner Joe Swash has an 11-year-old son called Harry. This will be the couple’s first child together.
They have been dating since January 2016 and moved in together at the end of last year.
Stacey told Loose Women viewers: ‘When I moved in with Joe, it was sort of, “Oh gosh, this is scary and weird,” and you get that funny feeling in your tummy. It was just me worrying about a big life change.' The duo revealed their happy baby news on Instagram last month.
Last weekend, fans speculated that Joe might have let the baby’s gender slip, when he shared a video of himself lifting a bottle of beer while shouting, ‘Yeah boy!’ to Instagram during Saturday’s Premier League fixture between Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal. However, Joe later insisted that he was simply celebrating Arsenal’s goal.
Pregnant women who are employed are usually entitled to 39 weeks of Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) as long as they have worked for their employer continuously for at least 26 weeks before the ‘qualifying week’, which is the 15th week before the expected week of childbirth.
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They are also entitled to 52 weeks of Statutory Maternity leave.
SMP is paid at 90 per cent of your average weekly earnings for the first six weeks, then £145.18 or 90 per cent of your average earnings for the remaining 33 weeks.
