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Currently fathers (including the mother’s husband, partner or civil partner who are responsible for the child’s upbringing) are entitled to two weeks Paternity Leave if they:
Also, if the child sadly dies, they are entitled to two weeks Parental Bereavement Leave (if the child is under 18, including stillbirths after 24 weeks of pregnancy). This is a ‘day one’ right (i.e. there is no qualifying service requirement) to be taken within 56 weeks of the child’s death.
What’s new?
Unfortunately Paternity and Parental Bereavement Leave (outlined above) do not help the father if it is the mother who dies.
The father would only be entitled to Paternity Leave if they had been employed for 26 weeks by the qualifying week. It also requires over three weeks notice – not much help for a dad who needs to take over in an emergency. There is also the option of Parental Leave (four weeks leave per year per child) but this is unpaid and again, requires notice.
Worse still, in the painful circumstances that both child and the mother die there would be no child to look after and no mother to support. The father would have no entitlement to Paternity Leave and would be limited to just the two weeks Parental Bereavement Leave.
The new Paternity Leave (Bereavement) Act (which rapidly received Royal Assent on 24 May 2024 after the election campaigning started) aims to put this right. It will:
It is not yet clear when the regulations required to bring this Act into force will be put in place. In practice, this means that the Act will need to be implemented at some point by our new Government.
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