Employees with a family bereavement currently have very limited rights to take time off work to grieve or handle affairs.
The current system relies on the goodwill and understanding of employers. Employees are often forced to take sick leave or holiday leave to deal with their loss.
Parental bereavement leave
Since April 2020, employees have had a right to parental bereavement leave. This is a right of each parent to two weeks off work at any point in the 56 weeks following:
- the death of a child, if they die under the age of 18
- a child who is stillborn after 24 weeks’ pregnancy
Employees have this right from the day they start their job. Unless the employer offers more generous terms, the time off is paid at the same weekly rate as statutory maternity pay. If more than one child dies, the employee is entitled to two weeks’ statutory parental bereavement leave for each child.
Though the law covers employees who experience the loss of a child, there is still no legal provision for other bereavements.
The Employment Rights Bill – New right to bereavement leave
The recently published Employment Rights Bill introduces a free-standing right to bereavement leave of at least one week (and pay for that week at the same rate as statutory maternity pay). Exactly which family members will be covered will be set out in regulations. The existing provision for parental bereavement leave is unchanged and will sit alongside and in addition to this new right.
Fast tracked change
The vast majority of the Employment Rights Bill’s provisions are unlikely to take effect until 2026, the introduction of bereavement leave is likely to happen sooner rather than later. The government’s Next Steps policy paper states that this change will come in ‘immediately’.
That said, given the time it will take for the Bill to make its way through Parliament, it’s likely to be Spring 2025 at the earliest before the law changes.
Further reading
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