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.
For further advice on any of the issues raised in this article, or for employment law advice more generally, please contact JPP Law on 020 3468 3064 or email [email protected]
