Employees who suffer any form of bereavement currently have very limited rights to take time off work to deal with it. Much currently falls to the goodwill and understanding of employers. Employees are often forced into taking time off sick or on holiday to deal with their loss.
The legal landscape is (slowly) changing. 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.
This law covers employees who experience the loss of a child but there remains no legal provisions in place for employees suffering wider bereavement. The recently published Employment Rights Bill aims to change this. The 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 ‘loved ones’ 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.
Whilst the vast majority of the 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’. 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.
Contact Jon Dunkley today for an informal chat, without obligation.
Contact Jon Dunkley
- [email protected]
- 01271 342268
