Bereaved parents to be given two weeks’ paid leave to grieve

Parents who lose a child under the age of 18 are to be given the right to two weeks’ paid leave to allow them time to grieve.

The government says the allowance will be one of the most generous in the world.

Currently under the Employment Rights Act, employees have a day-one right to take a “reasonable” amount of unpaid time off work to deal with an emergency involving a dependant, including arrangements following the death of a dependant.

What is “reasonable” depends on the circumstances but in practice the length of time off is agreed between the employer and employee.

The Parental Bereavement (Pay and Leave) Bill will give a day-one right to parental bereavement leave and employees with a minimum of 26 weeks’ continuous service will be eligible for statutory parental bereavement pay.

Employers will be able to recover payments from the government, which estimates that
the annual cost of statutory payments will be between £1.3m and £2m

It’s expected that the allowance will be available from 2020.

Please contact Toni Hudson if you would like more information about the issues raised in this article or any aspect of employment law.