Parental Bereavement Leave will be available from 2020 (updated January 2020).
The Parental Bereavement (Pay and Leave) Bill received Royal Assent in September 2018 and is likely to come into affect in 2020.
This would give a statutory entitlement of 2 weeks paid leave for bereaved parents, allowing them time to grieve for a deceased child and support the other parent/parents. This would be seperate to employees relying on the existing statutory right to take time off to deal with an emergency.
It is believed that small firms would be able to reclaim the full cost from the government, with larger firms being able to reclaim approximately 92%. Parents who are employees or workers will have this right from Day 1 of their employment, in the event of the death of their child under the age of 18, or if they suffer a stillbirth from 24 weeks of pregnancy.
The leave would be paid at the same rate as Maternity/Paternity/Shared Parental Pay, which is currently £148.88 (from April 2019) per week. The law is not expected until 2020 and it is anticipated it would only apply in England, Wales and Scotland initially (not Northern Ireland). The Act that received Royal Assent in 2018 sets out the framework for the law and will be supplemented by regulations, which are yet to be published.
You can read our January 2020 update about the legislation here.