Family Rights

Redundancy protections – Saturday 6 April 2024

The Protection from Redundancy (Pregnancy and Family Leave) Act 2023 provides additional and significant redundancy protections to pregnant employees and employees who have recently returned from parental leave.

The individuals that will be protected include:

  • A pregnant employee who’s in their protected period of pregnancy
  • Employees who have suffered a recent miscarriage
  • Shared parental leave returners
  • Adoption leave returners
  • Maternity returners.

When making these types of employees redundant, the Act will require employers to offer alternative employment. Failure to offer alternative employment will make the dismissal unfair.

Under the new rules, pregnant employees will be protected from the date they inform their employer that they are pregnant and during an additional period after they return from their statutory maternity leave. This additional period is calculated by adding 18 months onto the first day of the expected week of birth. For example, if an employee takes 12 months of statutory maternity leave, then they will receive an additional six months of protection when they return.

Protections will also be extended to employees that suffer a miscarriage, providing them with a protected period of two weeks after the end of the pregnancy.

Employers must oblige with these obligations when they’re informed of a pregnancy on or after Saturday 6 April 2024, and the additional protection period will apply to employees whose maternity leave finishes on or after Saturday 6 April 2024.

Employees on adoption leave will also benefit from a new period of protection over their leave and during an additional period following their return to work. This additional period is calculated in a similar way to maternity leave, but the 18 months added to the child is placed with the employee.

Shared parental leavers may also be entitled to the same protections. However, for them to apply, the employee must:

  • Take a minimum of 6 weeks of continuous shared parental leave; and
  • Start their shared parental leave on or after Saturday 6 April 2024.

To calculate the protection period, you add 18 months onto the date the child is placed or the first day of the expected week of birth.

However, these protections will not apply if the employee is otherwise protected under the adoption or maternity provisions above.

When the Act comes into force on Saturday 6 April 2024, you must ensure that the above list of individuals are not unjustly targeted during redundancies and that you implement systems for identifying potential suitable alternative vacancies. If you fail to do this, you risk being open to unfair dismissal and/or discrimination claims.

Paternity leave – expected ‘in due course’

As a result of a recent government consultation, there have been proposed amendments to the current legislation surrounding paternity leave.

The amendments seek to increase the amount of flexibility available by allowing leave to be taken:

  • Either in two separate blocks of one week, or one block of two weeks (the current position is taking one block of one or two weeks)
  • At any point during the first 52 weeks of the birth or adoption of the child, opposed to just within the first 8 weeks
  • With a notice period of only 28 days before each period of leave, but the requirement to notify the employer of entitlement will still be required to be given 15 weeks before birth.

The government hasn’t provided any clear timescales for the amendments, stating that they will happen ‘in due course.’ Your organisation will benefit from starting to consider how you’ll approach the changes to paternity leave, any changes you will need to make to your policies, and whether your contracts will remain complaint – if not, you will need to look at amending existing and future contractual provisions relating to paternity leave.

Paternity leave – expected ‘in due course’

As a result of a recent government consultation, there have been proposed amendments to the current legislation surrounding paternity leave.

The amendments seek to increase the amount of flexibility available by allowing leave to be taken:

  • Either in two separate blocks of one week, or one block of two weeks (the current position is taking one block of one or two weeks)
  • At any point during the first 52 weeks of the birth or adoption of the child, opposed to just within the first 8 weeks
  • With a notice period of only 28 days before each period of leave, but the requirement to notify the employer of entitlement will still be required to be given 15 weeks before birth.

The government hasn’t provided any clear timescales for the amendments, stating that they will happen ‘in due course.’ Your organisation will benefit from starting to consider how you’ll approach the changes to paternity leave, any changes you will need to make to your policies, and whether your contracts will remain complaint – if not, you will need to look at amending existing and future contractual provisions relating to paternity leave.

Carers leave – Saturday 6 April 2024

All employees will have a new day-one right to take a period of leave to provide or arrange care when they have dependants with long-term care needs.

Dependants include:

  • Spouses
  • Civil partners
  • Children
  • Parents
  • A person in the same household as the employee (unless they’re an employee of the employee, tenant, lodger, or border)
  • A person who reasonably relies on the employee for care.

A long-term care need is classed as an illness or injury, which can be physical or mental, that requires or is likely to require care for a period of more than three months, a disability (as defined in the Equality Act 2010), or issues relating to old age.

Employees will be able to take one week’s unpaid leave in a singular block or in individual, non-consecutive half, or full, days. The employee will also be protected from detriment by their employer for taking or seeking to take carers leave. This protection to detriment will also be extended to employees whose employer suspects that they will be likely to take carers leave. However, employers may be entitled to postpone a request if they reasonably consider that the operation of the business will be unduly disrupted.

Whilst the Act is not anticipated to come into force until Saturday 6 April 2024, you can consider updating or creating policies around carers leave and the logistics of taking/requesting it. You may want to create a system which logs how much carers leave an employee has taken to ensure they don’t take more than they’re entitled to.

Neonatal care – expected April 2025

The Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Act 2023 will provide parents with an additional 12 weeks’ leave, on top of their existing parental leave entitlements, when their baby requires neonatal care.

  • The right to the leave will be a day-one right for all employees.
  • To be eligible for statutory neonatal care pay, the parent must have 26 weeks of service and average earnings of at least £123 a week.
  • The leave must be taken within the first 68 weeks of the birth of the child.
  • It’s anticipated that the leave will be able to be taken in non-consecutive periods (as seen in shared parental leave), but this hasn’t yet been confirmed as more regulations are required before we have an exact picture of what neonatal care leave will look like.

As this won’t come into effect for a long time, and we are still awaiting further regulations, you may not need to consider how you will approach neonatal care for a little while. But some employers have already started announcing early implementation ahead of the government’s scheme. Whilst there’s no requirement for early implementation, it may be attractive to prospective employees and help you to retain skilled staff.

Neonatal care – expected April 2025

The Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Act 2023 will provide parents with an additional 12 weeks’ leave, on top of their existing parental leave entitlements, when their baby requires neonatal care.

  • The right to the leave will be a day-one right for all employees.
  • To be eligible for statutory neonatal care pay, the parent must have 26 weeks of service and average earnings of at least £123 a week.
  • The leave must be taken within the first 68 weeks of the birth of the child.
  • It’s anticipated that the leave will be able to be taken in non-consecutive periods (as seen in shared parental leave), but this hasn’t yet been confirmed as more regulations are required before we have an exact picture of what neonatal care leave will look like.

As this won’t come into effect for a long time, and we are still awaiting further regulations, you may not need to consider how you will approach neonatal care for a little while. But some employers have already started announcing early implementation ahead of the government’s scheme. Whilst there’s no requirement for early implementation, it may be attractive to prospective employees and help you to retain skilled staff.

Equality Act 2010

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