Enhanced family-friendly rights in the pipeline - Guest Article by John Morgan & Tom Corcoran

One of the trickiest areas of employment law to keep up with is the rights and entitlements around family-friendly leave. It seems not a month goes by without some new regulation or important legal decision comes from the courts which changes some subtle part of maternity leave or equalities protections for new parents.

This trend looks likely to continue over Summer and into Autumn, with various extensions to family-friendly rights being progressed in Parliament via government-backed bills and other reforms. Some of these changes could come into force without much notice.

We would advise employers to be alert about potential changes ahead, which will likely require changes to their current policy and practice. The key changes to the law may include the following:

1. Carer’s leave – The government announced its backing in October for the Carer’s Leave Bill which would entitle all employees to take a week’s unpaid leave in total in any 12-month period to provide, or arrange, care for a dependant with long-term care need. Such a need is currently proposed to include a disability, caring for the elderly or where a medical condition requires more than three months’ care. It is envisaged that employees will be required to give a short period of advance notice and that carers will have similar rights and protections (including from dismissal) as employees currently have when taking other forms of statutory leave.
2. Neonatal care leave and pay – Another government-backed Bill, the Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Bill, is proposed to provide leave for parents of a child who is receiving or has received neonatal care, alongside statutory pay for qualifying employees. The current proposal is for leave to be set at a minimum of one continuous week, which would be open to any employee irrespective of how long they have worked with a company. For neonatal pay, a 26 weeks service requirement is proposed to apply and earnings would have to be above a minimum rate. Employees taking neonatal care leave would have employment protections, including from dismissal and detriment.
3. Enhanced redundancy protection for women and new parents – A further government-backed Bill, the Protection from Redundancy (Pregnancy and Family Leave) Bill, proposes to extend existing redundancy protection for those on maternity, adoption and shared parental leave. At present, at certain times an employee on maternity leave has additional protection through a right to be offered suitable alternative employment if their job is being made redundant. It’s proposed that this extra protection would be extended to also include all time from the moment they notify their employer of their pregnancy and also for a period after the maternity, adoption and shared parental leave ends. The exact details would be defined by regulations to follow, though the Government has previously indicated support for extending this period by six months after the return to work from the relevant leave. Employees would have a claim for automatically unfair dismissal if their employer failed to comply.
4. Enhanced childcare rights – In the recent Budget, the Chancellor announced various measures to allow working parents improved access to childcare, including that from September 2025, working parents of children aged 9 months up to 3 years will be able to access 30 hours of free childcare per week. The Labour Party has also stated that it plans to comprehensively overhaul the existing childcare system if it wins power. Together, these are likely to substantially affect employees’ decisions/calculations around the take-up of other forms of parental leave.

Each of the changes mentioned above are yet to be finalised and passed by Parliament, but we are likely to see them pass in the next few weeks or months.

What does this mean for you?

Some of the reforms may be covered by employers’ existing policies or require limited adaptations. However, several are likely to require thought to be given about how to adapt. For example, the extension of redundancy protection to cover a longer period either side of maternity leave may result in employers inadvertently overlooking its application once employees return to work. Employers should therefore ensure that line managers are made aware and HR systems are updated to ensure that qualifying employees are identified.

The substance and timing of implementation of the new rights are also complicated by the need for government regulations to put ‘meat on the bones’ of the legislation. For that reason, while some changes could come into effect very quickly, others may have a longer lead-in period before they become law.

We’d therefore suggest that employers should follow developments and consider the need to amend existing (or draft new) HR policies in preparation. It may also be prudent to start thinking about training HR and managerial colleagues about the changes so that everyone is able to hit the ground running when they receive the first request.

 

Please do feel free to follow us on LinkedIn (John and Tom) if you would like to be kept up to date with ongoing changes in this area.

John Morgan is a Principal Associate and Tom Corcoran is an Associate in Eversheds Sutherland (International) LLP’s market leading Employment, Labour & Immigration team.