Prime Minister Andy Burnham has announced that the UK government is extending statutory bereavement leave entitlements to include .
Currently, the statutory entitlement to parental bereavement leave is limited to parents whose child under 18 has died, or who experience a stillbirth after 24 weeks of pregnancy. This enables them to take up to . As of April 2027, the entitlement will be extended to that occur before 24 weeks – though in such cases this leave will be unpaid.
It’s positive that the government is taking pregnancy endings seriously as an employment issue. We especially welcome the breadth of pregnancy endings eligible under the new policy – including molar pregnancies, ectopic pregnancies, unsuccessful IVF embryo transfers and .
Too often, pregnancy endings are treated as categorically different from each another, despite the fact, , that a person’s experiences and their medical circumstances don’t always conform to such clear distinctions. A person may terminate a wanted pregnancy, for example, because of a risk to their health or a diagnosis of foetal anomaly. Another may miscarry an unwanted pregnancy just before a scheduled abortion appointment. These experiences show the distinctions we rely on aren’t always as clear cut as they might appear.
We’re also glad to see employees will be able to take the leave flexibly within 56 weeks of the pregnancy ending. The entitlement will also extend to partners and intended parents in a surrogacy arrangement.
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ENDS