Employment Law Guide 2026: Paternity and parental leave

On 29 December 2025, the Paternity Leave (Bereavement) Act 2024 came into force. This enables regulations to be made introducing a day one right to for bereaved partners to take paternity leave (and so removing the 26-week qualifying period in circumstances covered by the Act). Once regulations have been made, the child’s father, or the partner of the child’s mother or adopter will be able to take paternity leave, irrespective of their length of service, where the mother or adopter of the child dies in childbirth, or within one year of the birth or adoption. The regulations will also allow a parent who has taken shared parental leave and whose partner subsequently dies to take paternity leave (this is currently prohibited due to anomaly mentioned above). These changes, once made, will only have an impact for a short period of time, due to the more general changes to paternity leave outlined above.

However, regulations could go further than this and:

• Disapply the requirement for paternity leave to be taken for the purposes of caring for the child or supporting the mother, where both the child and mother die (or in adoption cases, where the adopter dies and the child dies or is returned)
• Provide for a bereaved employee to work during a period of bereaved partner's paternity leave, without bringing that leave to an end (for example, keeping-in-touch (KIT) days),
• Provide for enhanced redundancy protection after a period of bereaved partner's paternity leave, and
• Extend the period of available leave in such circumstances to 52 weeks, rather than the usual two weeks

It is not known when these regulations will be made.

Implications/Action points

• Plan for a greater number of absences as more employees qualify for leave
• Train managers so they understand the new leave obligations
• Update paternity, parental and shared parental leave policies to reflect the changes.