Can a job just stop paying Maternity benefits?

Boooourns

My Wife is working for a well known company and she went about finding out if the company would pay a maternity contribution where she was told no by HR.
The company had been paying out this contribution up until 2009 when they decided to just stop it, i was wondering can they just do that and also my Wife is still signed up to the old contract (about 10years old) so can they just drop the contribution without getting her to sign a new contract?
The company drew up a new contract for the newer staff.

Eoin

I've heard of several companies that have stopped paying it, as it's very expensive for them.

From this page:

Changes to your contract of employment

Contractual terms and work practices

Legally there is a distinction between the terms in your contract of employment and work practices.

Contractual terms include pay, hours of work, sick pay and pension scheme. All of your contractual terms may not be in the written statement of your terms and conditions of employment. Some of your contractual terms could be in your staff handbook, a pension scheme booklet or a collective agreement. You can read more about contractual terms in our document on contract of employment. Changes to these terms must be agreed between you and your employer.

Work practices can include breaks and rostering, for example. Details of these may also be in your staff handbook and your employer may change these work practices without your consent. It is considered reasonable for an employer to update work practices or processes to save money or increase efficiency.

Kinetic^

If it's not in her contract then I'd imagine it falls on the discretion of the employer.

Boooourns

Thanks for the replies, we're going to have a look through the old contract.
It's a very frustrating moneysaver as the companies pretax profits was over 100million last year, the rich get richer.....