Bereavement leave: how will the new statutory right work?

Adrian Fryer

From April 2027, employees will have a new day-one statutory right to bereavement leave. The Government’s consultation response has now provided considerably more detail about how the new entitlement will operate.

Who qualifies?

The right will apply following the death of a specified person, including a spouse or civil partner, long-term partner, parent, adult child or sibling. The definitions will also capture various step, half, adoptive, foster and kinship relationships.

However, the statutory scheme will not extend to every close personal relationship. Grandparents, grandchildren, wider family members, friends and ‘chosen family’ will fall outside its scope.

The right will also cover pregnancy loss before 24 weeks, including miscarriage, ectopic and molar pregnancy, termination and unsuccessful IVF embryo transfer. Eligibility will extend beyond the person who was pregnant to certain partners and intended parents.

How much leave is available?

Eligible employees will be entitled to up to two weeks’ unpaid leave. The entitlement will reflect the employee’s normal working pattern rather than automatically meaning 14 calendar days.

Leave can be taken flexibly, including as individual days, and employees will have 56 weeks from the bereavement in which to take it.

Notice requirements will depend on when the leave is taken. During the first eight weeks following the bereavement, the employee need only notify the employer before they are due to start work that day or, where that is not reasonably practicable, as soon as reasonably practicable afterwards. After the first eight weeks, one week’s notice will generally be required.

Significantly, employers will not be permitted to require evidence of the bereavement.

A separate right from Parental Bereavement Leave

The new entitlement will sit alongside, rather than replace, existing Parental Bereavement Leave.

Where a child dies before their 18th birthday, or there is a stillbirth after 24 weeks of pregnancy, an employee may qualify for Parental Bereavement Leave and potentially Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay.

The two regimes are legally distinct. Where the eligibility requirements for both are satisfied, an employee may therefore be entitled to both forms of leave following the same bereavement.

The detail matters because employers will need to distinguish between their own contractual bereavement arrangements and two separate statutory regimes, each with its own eligibility and procedural rules.

Contact Adrian Fryer, Senior Partner and Head of Employment.