Like David Cameron before him, Boris Johnson has said that he is ‘almost certainly’ going to take paternity leave. Over the weekend, his girlfriend, Carrie Symonds{
‘Many of you already know but for my friends that still don't, we got engaged at the end of last year... and we've got a baby hatching early summer. Feel incredibly blessed,' she wrote on Instagram, alongside a selfie of the pair. Speculation has been that the pair got engaged whilst on holiday in Mustique over Christmas - putting Boris Johnson on track to be the first prime minister to get married while in office for 250 years.
And at a Downing Street news conference about coronavirus on Tuesday, he said would ‘almost certainly’ take paternity leave. It is thought foreign secretary Dominic Raab - as first secretary of state - would stand in to take up the PM’s responsibilities. (Yet this hasn't been confirmed.)
The last baby to be born in Downing Street was David Cameron's daughter Florence. The Prime Minister's wife Samantha gave birth to her, their fourth child, three months after the 2010 election. (Good news for Carrie and Boris, the climbing frames the Camerons built in the garden of Downing Street are still said to be in situ.)
Johnson and his second wife Marina Wheeler have four adult children together: Lara Lettice, Milo Arthur, Cassia Peaches and Theodore Apollo. He also has a younger daughter with Helen Macintyre, an art consultant.
In the UK, new fathers can take up to two weeks' statutory paternity leave, with eligible employees paid whichever is lower of £148.68 a week or 90% of their average weekly earnings.
READ MORE: Carrie Symonds And Boris Johnson Are Having A Baby - And They're Engaged Too