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The Employment Rights Act 2025 (“ERA 2025”) introduces important reforms aimed at modernising the workplace and better reflecting the needs of a modern-day family. One of its key focuses is strengthening family friendly rights, recognising the importance of supporting parents to balance work and family life whilst promoting equality and wellbeing in the workplace.
The amended family friendly rights within the ERA 2025, coming into effect in April 2026, benefit employees by providing greater flexibility, security and inclusivity for working parents. Currently, employees must be employed for at least one year to be eligible for paternity leave, and six months to be eligible for parental leave. The ERA 2025 provides additional support for family friendly rights by making existing entitlements to paternity leave and parental leave available from day one of employment.
These changes support shared caregiving responsibilities, encouraging a more equal division of childcare between parents, so much so that the Gov.uk website states that an additional 32,000 more partners per year will be able to access paternity leave immediately, bringing the right in line with maternity leave.
Further, the ERA 2025 introduces new protections against dismissal for pregnant women and mothers on maternity leave for at least six months after they return to work, except in specific circumstances.
The ERA 2025 aims to strengthen the existing ‘day-one’ right to request flexible working by introducing a more transparent process to be followed when a request cannot be agreed. The change requires employers to explain their rationale for denying a request and, in addition to relying on one of the eight existing business grounds, an employer can only reject a request if it is reasonable to do so.
Existing entitlements are expanded to cover early pregnancy loss. Currently, the statutory right to bereavement leave only applies to employees who experience the loss of a child under the age of 18 or a stillbirth after 24 weeks of pregnancy. In these circumstances, employees are entitled to two weeks of leave. Employees are also entitled to pay if certain eligibility criteria are met. The ERA 2025 will extend bereavement leave to employees who experience pregnancy loss before 24 weeks, including losses resulting from miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, and unsuccessful embryo transfer during IVF treatment. Mothers and their partners experiencing pregnancy loss will be entitled to at least one week of unpaid leave.
Finally, the Government has introduced a Bereaved Partner’s Paternity Leave (BPPL), providing up to 52 weeks of unpaid leave for those who lose their partner before their child’s first birthday. The right operates alongside ordinary paternity leave. So, an employee may take up to two weeks’ paternity leave and receive statutory paternity leave pay (if eligible) then move onto BPPL. Whilst someone will be eligible for parental leave from day one of employment from April 2026, the 26 weeks’ service requirement still applies to be entitled to the statutory pay for the leave.