Employment Rights Bill: family rights and leave

The Employment Rights Bill will introduce some changes to family rights and leave, including making paternity and parental leave day-one rights and increasing protection against dismissal for pregnant women and new parents.

Paternity leave

In terms of the Employment Rights Bill (‘the Bill’), from 6 April 2026:

• Paternity leave will become a ‘day-one’ right for eligible employees. Currently this is only available once an employee has 26 weeks’ service at the relevant date.
• It will become possible to take paternity leave after shared parental leave. At the moment, employees lose their entitlement to paternity leave and pay if they opt to take shared parental leave first.

Separately to the Bill:

• Legislation giving bereaved fathers / partners the right to extended paternity leave during the first year of the child's life if the mother (or primary adopter) dies has been passed, but regulations are required to bring the provisions into force.
• The Women and Equalities Committee made various recommendations earlier this year, including that paternity leave should be extended to six weeks and paternity pay should become a day-one right and be increased to 90% of average earnings. It also suggested that the Government considers making part of paternity leave compulsory and extending leave and pay to self-employed fathers and to close family / friends who share caring responsibilities in some circumstances. It is unclear whether any of these recommendations will be adopted.

Parental leave

From 6 April 2026 unpaid parental leave will become a day-one right. Currently this is only available after one year’s service.

Bereavement leave

At the moment there is a right to two weeks’ statutory parental bereavement leave and pay for employees who lose a child under 18 or suffer a stillbirth from 24 weeks of pregnancy. A new day-one right to a more general bereavement leave is to be introduced which will apply to the loss of a wider group of people. Regulations will be required to set out the detail but we know that it will be unpaid, last for a minimum of one week and extend to parents who experience pregnancy loss before 24 weeks. The Government is consulting on this in autumn 2025 with a view to implementing measures in 2027.

Protection against dismissal for pregnant women and family leave returners

It will become unlawful to dismiss a woman whilst pregnant, on maternity leave or within six months of returning to work - although there will be some exceptions. There may also be additional protection against dismissal following other periods of statutory family leave (including adoption, shared parental leave, neonatal care leave and bereaved partners’ paternity leave) but there are no details yet.

This proposal extends the protection that already exists in a redundancy situation (which was itself extended in April 2024). The priority for offers of suitable alternative employment in a redundancy process currently exists from when a woman tells her employer she is pregnant, until 18 months after the expected week of childbirth. Employees are also protected: (i) during the course of adoption leave and for 18 months from the day the child is placed with the employee for adoption (UK adoptions) or enters Great Britain (overseas adoptions); and (ii) during the course of shared parental leave or neonatal leave and, if the employee has taken at least six weeks of continuous shared parental or neonatal leave, for 18 months following the birth / adoption of the child / entry into Great Britain.

A consultation on these changes is running just now, with implementation scheduled for 2027.

Carer’s leave

Statutory carer’s leave is currently unpaid. The Government intends to review this right and may consider introducing paid leave. This does not form part of the Bill and further detail is awaited.

Full review of the family leave system

The Government is carrying out a full review of all types of family leave, including maternity, paternity, adoption, shared parental, neonatal and parental bereavement leave, recognising that the current system “does not support working parents”. The review launched on 1 July 2025 and is expected to run for 18 months.

Looking ahead

Whilst these reforms will not take effect until 2026 or 2027, it would be good practice to look ahead and prepare now as far as possible. Practical steps might include reviewing family leave policies currently in place, raising awareness of the proposed changes and rolling out training for line managers.

This blog is only a high-level summary of the principal changes in the Employment Rights Bill impacting family rights and leave. For a timeline and insights on all the Bill’s reforms, go to our dedicated page. We are also running an Employment Rights Act webinar series, hosting 30-minute webinars providing practical guidance on key aspects of the Act. Further details and a link to register can be found here.

For more information about any of the above, please contact our Employment and immigration lawyers. Workbox by Brodies, our HR and employment law site, also has detailed information and resources covering the full spectrum of HR issues arising from the Bill’s reforms. To arrange a short demo, please get in touch.