The Employment Rights Act 2025 received Royal Assent on 18 December 2025, but most of the family related changes won’t hit all at once. They are being phased in during 2026 and 2027, which is helpful, it means you need to plan for “what’s coming” while still running your business day to day.
This article is designed to help employers stay ahead of the reforms that affect family leave, bereavement and pregnancy related protections. We will look at what’s changing, when it’s expected to take effect, and where your focus should be for workforce planning, redundancy strategy and dismissal decisions over the next 12 to 24 months.
If you would like support reviewing your family-related policies and training managers on good practice, our employment law solicitors can help you get everything aligned and reduce the risk of grievances, claims and an unhappy, unproductive workforce.
Contents:
What is changing under the Employment Rights Act 2025?
Parental leave: currently, employees need to have worked for a year before becoming eligible to take unpaid parental leave (sometimes called ordinary parental leave). The service requirement will be removed and unpaid parental leave will become a day one right from 6 April 2026. Parents who will become eligible for this right on 6 April 2026 have been able to give notice that they intend to take it since 18 February 2026.
This doesn’t change the fact that leave is unpaid, or the wider framework around notice and limits on how the leave can be taken, but it does mean new starters won’t have to accrue a certain level of qualifying service before they can take the leave.
Paternity leave: at present, employees are required to have 26 weeks’ service before they are entitled to take paternity leave. From 6 April 2026, that service requirement will be removed, making paternity leave a day one right (as long as the employee gives the correct notice). The Employment Rights Act 2025 also removes the restriction that currently stops employees from taking paternity leave and pay after taking shared parental leave and pay. In practice, this should reduce “lost entitlement” scenarios where families choose shared parental leave and then discover (too late) they have closed off paternity leave options.
These changes only apply to:
(a) children born on or after 6 April 2026
(b) children who had an expected week of childbirth (EWC) of 6 April 2026 but were born early
(c) children placed for adoption on or after 6 April 2026 or
(d) children whose primary carer dies on or after 6 April 2026 (regardless of the date of birth, EWC or placement for adoption).
Employees who are newly eligible for paternity leave as a result of these changes but who have an EWC between 6 April 2026 and 25 July 2026 may give shorter notice of 28 days, of their intention to take the leave, rather than the usual notice by the end of the 15th week before the EWC.
It is important to separate leave from pay: the qualifying period for statutory paternity pay is not changing, so not everyone taking paternity leave will automatically qualify for statutory pay.
Bereaved partner’s paternity leave
Although not part of the Employment Rights Act 2026, it is also important to be aware of the new right to unpaid bereaved partner’s paternity leave, which also comes into effect on 6 April 2026. These provisions will apply where the bereavement occurs on or after 6 April 2026. They are intended to fill the gap where a bereaved partner is not eligible for shared parental leave.
An employee seeking to take a bereaved partner’s paternity leave will be able to take a single period of leave of up to 52 weeks after the birth of a child or the child’s placement for adoption, in circumstances where the primary carer has died during that period. Differing notice requirements apply, depending on whether the leave is taken in the first eight weeks after the bereavement, or later.
As with the other forms of family leave, this is a day one right, with mirroring rights to protection against dismissal and detriment, and provision for Keeping In Touch days. Eligibility arises when the child’s primary carer has died within 52 weeks of the child’s birth or placement for adoption and the employee seeking to take the leave has the necessary relationship to the child or primary carer.
Whilst leave under these provisions is unpaid, the employee may claim two weeks’ statutory paternity pay, as long as they have not previously had a period of ordinary paternity leave for which statutory paternity pay was paid.
Enhanced dismissal protections for pregnant women and new mothers: it’s already the case that pregnant employees and some employees taking (or returning from) certain types of statutory family leave have enhanced protection in redundancy situations. Put simply, if there is a suitable alternative vacancy, you may have to offer it to them in priority to others if a redundancy arises during the ‘protected period’.
This redundancy priority applies to pregnancy and to employees taking maternity leave, adoption leave, shared parental leave and neonatal care leave. It does not apply to paternity leave. Since 6 April 2024, the redundancy protected period has also been extended and can run beyond the end of leave (the length depends on the type of leave and the circumstances).
The Employment Rights Act 2025 goes further than redundancy and strengthens the legal framework giving enhanced protection against dismissal during and after pregnancy and statutory family leave, during the protected period of pregnancy. It will be an automatically unfair dismissal to dismiss a pregnant employee or a new mother until they have been back at work for at least six months after giving birth, except in specific circumstances. The Act gives the government power to set the detail in regulations, including when the protected period starts and ends and the circumstances (if any) where dismissal will still be permitted. This may include, for example, restrictions on the test of fairness or a prohibition on dismissals except for gross misconduct. Regulations setting out those details are yet to be published.
This matters because whilst currently all dismissals are measured against the same standards of fairness, that position may change, making dismissals in these circumstances harder to implement. When coupled with the existing risk of discrimination claims if an employee believes that her pregnancy or maternity leave was the reason for her dismissal, employers would be well-advised to keep a close eye on how the regulations develop.
A new right to bereavement leave (including pregnancy loss): at the moment, there is no general statutory right to bereavement leave other than the specific right to parental bereavement leave when a child under 18 dies, or a stillbirth from 24 weeks). The Employment Rights Act 2025 extends the statutory framework to a wider scope of bereavement leave.
Employees will have a day one right to protected time off to grieve the loss of a loved one, including pregnancy loss before 24 weeks. Note that this covers the loss of a pregnancy for any reason other than a live birth and so will encompass failed IVF and abortion as well as other types of pregnancy loss. The leave will be unpaid as a baseline statutory right (employers can always offer a more generous paid policy). The Act sets a minimum entitlement of one week, and the detail, including which relationships qualify, how notice and evidence will work, and how the leave can be taken, will be set out in regulations. The current right to parental bereavement leave of two weeks (with statutory parental bereavement pay) will remain where a child under the age of 18 has died.
When will these changes take place?
The government has published an updated implementation timetable for the Employment Rights Act 2025. For family-related rights, the key dates employers should have in their diary are:
6 April 2026
- Day one paternity leave and day one unpaid parental leave will take effect. Employees who become newly eligible from that date may give notice from 18 February 2026, so you may see requests landing before April as people plan ahead.
- Bereaved partner’s paternity leave will come into effect as a day one right.
2027
- Enhanced dismissal protections for pregnant women and new mothers, once the regulations are finalised.
- Bereavement leave (including pregnancy loss), once the regulations are finalised.
How could these changes affect redundancy planning and dismissals?
Even before the Employment Rights Act 2025 family reforms are in force, the existing redundancy priority rules for pregnancy and certain types of family leave can materially affect redundancy selection processes and workforce restructuring plans, especially now that the redundancy protected period can extend beyond the end of leave.
Looking ahead, enhanced dismissal protections (once the regulations are in place) are likely to increase risk areas for employers where business change overlaps with pregnancy or the months following a return to work after statutory family leave. Care should be taken on timing, documentation, consistency and the alternatives you have genuinely considered.
If you are planning role consolidation, headcount reduction, or performance management and you’ve got employees in these protected periods, it’s a good time to take advice early. Often the risk is less about what you are trying to achieve, and more about how it’s handled.
Depending on the content of the final regulations, dismissals may be restricted and so employers will need to ensure that investigations and procedures are thorough, transparent and watertight.
Is the Government considering any further changes to family leave?
The government launched a full review of the parental leave and pay system on 1 July 2025, and it’s expected to run until early 2027.
It’s looking at how the overall “system” works in practice (maternity, paternity, adoption, shared parental leave and pay, and more), and whether it properly supports modern working families and employers. The review is expected to conclude with findings and a roadmap, so it could shape further reform, but we won’t know the direction of travel until the review is further along.
What should we be doing now to plan for these changes?
The most important step to take is to understand whether anyone in your workforce is now eligible for the new rights and make sure you have planned accordingly. This will include checking whether any notices are required and have been given properly, considering the amount of absence that might be taken and planning how the employee’s duties will be covered during that time so that colleagues aren’t overloaded and business continuity is maintained.
While the detail for 2027 reforms will sit in regulations (so some uncertainty remains), there’s still plenty you can do now to reduce risk and avoid last minute policy scrambles:
- Review your family leave policies, especially paternity leave, unpaid parental leave, maternity, adoption, shared parental leave, neonatal care leave and compassionate leave.
- Check your payroll and HR processes so you can distinguish between eligibility for leave and eligibility for statutory pay (particularly for paternity leave).
- Make sure anyone involved in redundancy planning understands the current redundancy priority rules and who they apply to.
- Consider whether you want to enhance your approach to bereavement and pregnancy loss now, rather than waiting for the statutory baseline in 2027.
Summary
The Employment Rights Act 2025 is setting a new direction of travel for family related rights at work. Some of the changes are very close (day one paternity leave and day one unpaid parental leave from 6 April 2026). Others will take longer and will depend on secondary legislation (bereavement leave and enhanced dismissal protections in 2027).
If you want confidence that your policies, documentation and management practices are aligned with what’s changing, particularly if you are planning growth, restructuring or organisational change, our specialist employment law solicitors can help you review and update your existing family related policies and assist with any questions you may have. We will also keep you updated on any changes as they happen in the coming months.
