Bereavement leave and pregnancy loss: Government confirms the next steps

The latest development in the expansion of statutory bereavement rights

Progress has been made towards extending statutory bereavement rights, particularly for those who experience pregnancy loss before 24 weeks. The Government’s response to its consultation, published on 22 September 2026, is the latest development in that process.

In our May 2025 article, we outlined the current statutory bereavement leave and pay framework and explained that there is no specific statutory right to parental bereavement leave or pay for those who experience pregnancy loss during the first 24 weeks of pregnancy. Against that background, the Women and Equalities Committee recommended that pregnancy loss before 24 weeks should be brought within the scope of bereavement leave. In response to that recommendation, the Government stated on 24 March 2025 that, while it accepted in principle that bereavement leave should be available following pregnancy loss, it would not commit at that stage to any specific amendments to the Employment Rights Bill (“ERB”). Instead, it said that it would consider the issue further as the ERB progressed through the House of Lords.

In our July 2025 article, we reported on the Government’s wide-ranging review of parental leave and pay, including bereavement leave, which was launched on 3 July 2025 and was expected to run for 18 months. Shortly afterwards, on 7 July 2025, the Government confirmed that the ERB would be amended to provide bereavement leave for families who experience pregnancy loss.

To inform the detail of that entitlement, the Government subsequently launched its consultation, “Make Work Pay: Leave for bereavement including pregnancy loss”. The consultation ran from 16 October 2025 to 15 January 2026 and sought stakeholders’ views on eligibility, when and how leave could be taken, notice and evidence requirements, and other aspects of the proposed policy. The Government published its response on 22 September 2026.

Key points:

• Bereavement leave will be available as a day-one right to all employees.

• Leave will be available to employees who experience any type of pregnancy loss before 24 weeks, including termination and IVF embryo transfer loss. It will be available to the person who experienced the pregnancy loss, the other biological parent, partners and intended parents in a surrogacy arrangement.

• Leave will also be available to employees who experience a bereavement of their spouse, partner (cohabiting and non-cohabiting), parents, adult children, siblings (biological, adopted, step and half), and equivalent parental relationships for those raised in kinship arrangements or by foster carers.

• Employees will be entitled to up to two weeks of unpaid leave, which may be taken within 56 weeks of the date of the death or pregnancy loss, or the date on which they became aware of it.

• Evidence of the bereavement will not be required. Where leave is taken within the first eight weeks following the bereavement, notice may be given as soon as reasonably practicable. Thereafter, one week’s notice will be required. Notice may be given in any form.

• The consultation response is available here. The measures will be brought into force through secondary legislation in April 2027.

Although extending bereavement leave to pregnancy loss before 24 weeks was not initially on the Government’s agenda, sustained campaigning has helped bring about this change. While the leave will be unpaid, its introduction nevertheless represents a positive step forward in support for bereaved employees in the workplace.

It is notable that this new right will apply to a broad range of relationships, and that it will include not only the employee who experiences a pregnancy loss, but also to the other biological parent, partners and intended parents in a surrogacy arrangement.

From an employer’s perspective, the absence of any requirement to provide evidence of the bereavement, together with the relatively flexible notice arrangements, may create concerns that the entitlement could be misused. However, that risk may be reduced by the fact that the leave is unpaid, which may discourage employees from taking it other than where genuinely required.

Employers may of course decide to offer more generous contractual rights for paid leave to bereaved employees.

The new entitlement should be distinguished from parental bereavement leave, which allows an employee in Great Britain to take one or two weeks off work following the death of a child under 18 or a stillbirth after 24 weeks of pregnancy. The right applies where the death or stillbirth occurred on or after 6 April 2020, and no minimum length of service is required. Unlike the new wider category of bereavement leave set to come in next April, employees and paid office holders with at least six months’ continuous service and normal weekly earnings of at least the lower earnings limit have the right to statutory parental bereavement pay for one or two weeks, paid at the same rate as statutory parental pay.

  If you would like to discuss any aspect of this article further, please contact our Employment team on 0113 244 6100. 

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The information in this article is necessarily of a general nature. The law stated is correct at the date (stated above) this article was first posted to our website.

Specific advice should be sought for specific situations. If you have any queries or need any legal advice, please feel free to contact Wrigleys Solicitors.