From 6 April 2026, eligible employees will have a statutory right to take bereaved partner’s paternity leave (BPPL) for up to 52 weeks after a child’s birth or placement for adoption, where the child’s ‘primary carer’ (usually the mother or co-adopter) has died. The leave will be available where the primary carer dies on or after 6 April 2026 and it is a day one right. Regulations have now been published setting out more detail about how this type of leave will operate.
Now the Regulations have been published, let’s take a deeper dive into this new type of leave:
BPPL addresses a current gap in protection for bereaved partners who are not eligible for shared parental leave (SPL) and therefore are not entitled to a longer period of statutory leave to care for their child in the event that the primary carer (usually the mother or co adopter) dies shortly after birth or adoption. In many cases the bereaved partner may qualify for SPL, but this is not always the case, so it was identified that there was a need for this additional type of leave.
An employee is entitled to BPPL if:
An eligible employee is entitled to a single period of BPPL. It can only start after the bereavement and must start and end within the "paternity leave eligibility period", which is a period of 52 weeks starting with the day after the date of birth or adoption placement. Within that period, the employee can choose the start and end dates and the length of leave.
However, if the bereavement date is less than 14 days before the end of the paternity leave eligibility period, the period is extended to allow up to 14 days of BPPL.
The regulations create a two-tier notice system for taking BPPL:
It is important to note that there is no provision for statutory pay, although eligible employees may claim their two weeks' statutory paternity pay during BPPL if they have not already received it. However, employers can of course choose to make some of the period paid, particularly if they also offer enhanced pay during other types of family leave.
Employees taking BPPL will benefit from protections which are very similar to those applicable to employees taking other forms of family leave, including:
Employees may also work up to ten “keeping in touch” days, by agreement, without bringing the leave to an end.
A bereaved partner may also have other statutory rights to leave, which they may exercise instead of, or in addition to, BPPL, including paternity leave, shared parental leave, parental bereavement leave, time off for dependants leave and/or parental leave.
If the employee qualifies for shared parental leave then they may well choose to take this period of leave instead of BPPL, particularly if they will qualify for statutory shared parental leave pay.
Alex Payton comments:
This is a welcome positive step towards supporting bereaved parents. Employers should update their existing family leave policies to ensure that this new statutory right is set out. Employers may also wish to provide training to managers, to ensure they are able to respond to requests for BPPL appropriately and in a sensitive way.
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