A new deal between the Government and the Unions will see the amount of annual leave we can take in the office extended and almost 4.5 million people will be affected.

Under the new proposals, decided at Labour’s National Policy Forum, parents with children up to 16 years of age can take time off work to provide emotional support, during exam time for example, or for small family emergencies. Prior to the recent changes it was only parents with children up to 6 years of age who were entitled to unpaid leave of this kind.

Previously, under the the Working Times Regulation Act 1998 (WTR), employees had 4 weeks annual leave, when they took this time off was often beyond their control. Bank holidays could be included which reduced the actual holiday time available to working parents.

Legislation, currently, keeps the amount of leave at 4 weeks per year with parents having to give 21 days notice to their bosses when they request time off. On average 95% of requests for unpaid leave are granted. If a company does decide to refuse to give an employee leave they have to justify it. What these justifications actually are, is still unclear.

In the UK we work a lot. We work much more than our European, American or even our Australian counterparts. On average the Spanish are the only people in Europe who work later than us. They do, however, take very long lunches – certainly not a soggy Tesco sarnie hastily scoffed over the keyboard.

Chained to their desks, parents around the contry, are often unfairly accused of bringing up a nation of unruly children. Some would argue that the most interesting thing about these ammendments is whether our propensity to work to such extremes is resulting in a nation of badly behaved, emotionally unstable kids.

The answer to that is not up to me to decide but what is certain is that it’s no bad thing to have provisions for time-off in place that recognize exam leave and family emergencies.