Dr Anne Sammon, Partner and employment law specialist at Pinsent Masons
The government has confirmed it will extend “day one” employee bereavement and pregnancy loss rights from next April. The changes will give more people a legal right to take time off work after suffering a bereavement or pregnancy loss in another shake-up to employment rights.
Employees who lose a spouse, partner, parent, adult child or sibling will be entitled to take two weeks unpaid leave, calculated according to their normal working pattern. These will be statutory day one rights, applicable from the first day of employment, and extend to cover step and half relatives, as well as foster, kinship care and adoptive relationships.
Previously, only parents who had suffered the loss of a child under 18 or a stillbirth after 24 weeks of pregnancy had a legal right to bereavement leave.
The government confirmed that women and their partners who experience any type of pregnancy loss including miscarriage, terminations and unsuccessful IVF embryo transfers would also be entitled to up to two weeks of unpaid leave. Other biological parents, partners – both co-habiting and not co-habiting – and intended parents in a surrogacy arrangement will also now be entitled to pregnancy loss leave.
Employees affected by a stillbirth after 24 weeks may also qualify for statutory maternity, paternity or shared parental leave and pay.
The government says the aim of the new entitlements is to ensure employees have a...
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