From April next year employees will have new legal rights over how much time they have have off work following a bereavement. There has also been more clarity on who and when these rights will apply, including time off for pregnancy loss.
What will the new laws cover?
The Employment Rights Act came into effect in December 2025 and set out to give more rights around unpaid leave when it comes to bereavement from day one of starting a new job. But now, after a consultation period, the government have been clear about exactly what that entails.
If you lose a spouse, partner, parent, adult child or sibling, you will be entitled to 2 weeks’ unpaid leave.
The new bereavement laws will include a wider range of relationships than previous laws have stated, including step, half, adoptive, foster and kinship care relationships as well as parents who have experienced a pregnancy loss, including miscarriage, termination and unsuccessful IVF embryo transfers.
New rights after pregnancy loss
These new laws will cover people who experience miscarriages before 24 weeks, whereas previously the law only allowed for time off if parents lost a child under 18 or stillborn from 24 weeks. It will cover partners, the other biological parent and in a surrogacy arrangement it will cover the intended parents.
In a statement to his instagram, Prime Minister Andy Burnham stated that 1 in 5 women in the UK will experience miscarriage in their lifetime and that “losing a pregnancy can be devastating. You and your partner shouldn’t have to worry about going staight back to work.”
The move has been welcomed by many advocacy groups including baby loss charity Tommy’s who took to their channels to say “This is undoubtedly a huge improvement versus the current laws that only recognise the need for meaningful time off when baby loss occurs after the 24 week point” but also highlighted the importance of backing from workplaces.
