Workers in the UK will be entitled to up to two weeks of unpaid leave to mourn the death of close family members under changes to employment law that will kick in from April next year.
The legal right to bereavement leave will apply to employees who have lost a spouse or partner, parent, adult child or sibling and without the need to provide evidence, the government will announce on Tuesday.
Ministers said the changes would bring the law “into the 21st century” by also including stepfamilies, half-siblings, adoptive, kinship care and foster relationships in the definition of those eligible.
Officials said that good employers not only provided bereavement leave as a matter of course already but many gave it as paid leave.
As such, the new secondary legislation would simply provide a “safety net” for those working elsewhere, said one official.
Labour promised to introduce bereavement leave in its election manifesto and the promise was legislated for in last year’s workers’ rights bill.
Ministers carried out a lengthy consultation earlier this year and on Tuesday will set out how the pledge will work in practice in their response.
The government has tightened its definition of close relatives since the consultation, dropping “aunts, uncles and cousins, nieces and nephews” from the list of those eligible for the new right.
It has also dropped the idea of letting workers count their close friends as family members for the purposes of bereavement leave.
Ministers consulted on...
ST PHOTO: AZMI ATHNI Singapore’s embassy in Jakarta rejected social media claims that Dino Patti Djalal and Saiful Mujani visited the ambassador’s residence, calling them “clearly disinformation”...