The UK government is extending parental pay to more than 150,000 additional parents a year, including self-employed fathers and partners who have so far missed out, with two weeks of support currently worth up to £194 (roughly $260) a week, as one of a package of measures HM Treasury announced on 26 October. Bectu, the UK union for film and TV crews, calls it "a big step forwards" for its campaign, and its head Philippa Childs says freelancers and the self-employed "are too often excluded from basic employment protections" and that "there is still a long way to go". Neither the government nor the union gives a start date.