Bereavement leave rights: The government wants your views

The government has opened a consultation on a new day-one right to unpaid bereavement leave for employees who experience the loss of a loved one, including pregnancy loss before 24 weeks.

This is part of the Employment Rights Bill and the wider Make Work Pay programme.

Today, statutory bereavement leave is only guaranteed for parents who lose a child under 18 or experience a stillbirth after 24 weeks' pregnancy, through Parental Bereavement Leave. Everyone else relies on their employer's policy or discretion.

The new entitlement would set a clear minimum standard across the economy, while leaving employers free to go further.

What is being proposed?

Under clause 18 of the Employment Rights Bill, the government plans to introduce an additional right to unpaid bereavement leave for employees who are "bereaved persons", defined in regulations by their relationship to the person who has died.

The Bill sets the basic framework:

• A day-one right to unpaid bereavement leave for eligible employees who lose a loved one, including pregnancy loss before 24 weeks

• A minimum leave period of one week

• A requirement that employees must be able to take that leave within a window of at least 56 days from the date of the loss

• Protection against unfair treatment and unfair dismissal for taking the leave, and protection of contractual rights while on leave

What the government wants feedback on

The consultation is structured in three main parts:

1. Who should be eligible?

Loss of a loved one

The government is consulting on which relationships should qualify for bereavement leave, from immediate family (partners, parents, children, siblings) through to:

• grandparents

• extended family

• "chosen family" such as foster carers, kinship carers or close friends who play a similar role

It also invites suggestions for other relationships that the law should recognise.

Pregnancy loss

The government also asks who should be covered when there is a pregnancy loss – either:

• only the person who was pregnant

• also their spouse, civil partner or long-term partner, intended co-parents and intended parents in surrogacy arrangements

The consultation lists several types of pregnancy loss (such as miscarriage, ectopic or molar pregnancy, IVF embryo-transfer loss and medical termination) and asks whether all, or others, should qualify for leave.

2. How and when leave can be taken

The Bill guarantees at least one week of unpaid bereavement leave and requires that employees must be able to take it within a window of at least 56 days.

But the government can extend both the length of leave and the window.

• Duration: Should leave be one week, two weeks or another period, and should this vary by relationship or type of loss?

• Start date: Should the entitlement run from the date of death or pregnancy loss, or from when the employee becomes aware of it?

• Flexibility: Should leave be taken in one block, or split into weekly or daily units, and how should this interact with other leave such as sickness absence after pregnancy loss?

• Window: Should the current 56-day minimum be kept or extended (for example, up to a year) to allow time off around anniversaries and key dates?

3. Notice and evidence

The consultation also looks at how the right would work in practice.

On notice, the government is asking whether:

• employees should have to give notice at all if they take leave immediately after a loss

• how much notice should be needed if they take leave later

• what forms of notice should count (for example, phone, text or email)

On evidence, it asks whether:

• employees should ever have to provide proof of a bereavement

• what forms of evidence would be reasonable (for example, a simple declaration, medical note or death certificate)

• sensible timescales for providing it

The aim is to balance sensitivity to bereaved staff with employers' need to manage absence and prevent workers misusing the policy.

Why this matters for small businesses

Small employers often know their staff well and already try to respond with compassion. But they also feel the impact of absence most sharply.

This consultation is your chance to shape:

• how wide the eligibility rules are

• how much flexibility you have in managing leave

• how simple the notice and evidence processes will be

Have your say

The consultation is open until 11.59pm on 15 January 2026. You can read the consultation and respond online.

To respond directly to the survey, please use this link.

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