Paternity Leave (Bereavement) Act 2024: What’s Changed and What’s Still to Come

The Paternity Leave (Bereavement) Act (PLBA) deals with a quite specific set of circumstances and applies where the mother or adopter of a child dies in childbirth or within a year of the birth or adoption of that child. It also applies to those taking paternity leave in surrogacy or parental order situations. In these circumstances the PLBA enables the father or partner of the mother or adopter to take bereaved partners paternity leave without requiring the 26 weeks minimum service. There is also no longer a prohibition on taking this leave where the parent has already taken shared parental leave.

It is worth remembering that the Employment Rights Act 2025 will be bringing in wholesale changes to paternity leave in any event. These changes (expected to be implemented in April 2026) will mean that the changes brought in by the PLBA will rendered unnecessary as the ERA will:

• Make paternity leave (but not statutory paternity pay) a day one right for eligible employees;

• Remove the restriction on taking paternity leave or receiving statutory paternity pay following a period of shared parental leave a pay.

Are there any other changes to paternity leave we can expect in the future?

The PLBA does contain provisions for regulations to be made which would fully implement the PLBA. These regulations would disapply the requirement for paternity leave to be taken for the purposes of caring for the child or supporting the mother where both the mother and child die, or in adoption cases, where the adopter dies and the child dies or is returned; enable the bereaved employee to work for the employer during a period of bereaved partner’s paternity leave without bringing that leave to an end (e.g. take KIT days); make provision for enhanced redundancy protection after a period of bereaved partner’s paternity leave and extend the period of available leave from 2 weeks to 52 weeks in these circumstances.

However, there isn’t any indication as yet for when these further regulations will be made.