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Bereavement leave law widens to cover step-families and kinship carers, small businesses have six months to catch up

ended 23. September 2026

The government announced today that from April 2027, staff in Great Britain will get up to two weeks' unpaid leave when they lose a spouse, partner, parent, adult child or sibling, now including step, half, adopted, fostered and kinship relationships, plus pregnancy loss before 24 weeks. Full BBC coverage: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckrerp1e7vdqo

Before this, only parents losing a child under 18, or a stillbirth after 24 weeks, had a guaranteed right. Everything else was pot luck. Now it's a day-one right for every employee under the Employment Rights Act, usable in one block or spread across 56 weeks.

For small businesses this is a live compliance job with a deadline, not background noise. Three things to sort now: rewrite the policy so it names step, half, adopted, foster and kinship relationships instead of just "immediate family"; decide your pay stance in writing before someone needs it, because improvising on the spot looks like favouritism whatever you choose; and plan how a small team covers two weeks' unplanned absence before it actually happens.

  • Should this leave be paid, or is unpaid time enough for stretched small firms?
  • Does your policy already cover step, half and kinship families, or is this about to catch you out?
  • Is 56 weeks long enough to use the leave flexibly, or does grief not really work to a deadline?
  • Should the length of leave depend on the relationship, or is a flat two weeks fair whoever you've lost?
  • In a five-person team, who realistically covers the work while someone's off grieving?
  • If someone takes two days' bereavement leave, then resigns or is made redundant before using the rest, does that entitlement just vanish, or should it follow them to their next employer?

5 responses from the Newspage community

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Kate UnderwoodVerified
Founder & Chief People Strategist at Kate Underwood HR & Training
Here's another thing small businesses just have to absorb and get on with, no extra support, no funding, just sort it and keep walking in a straight line while you do it. But that doesn't make it wrong. Grief doesn't check your family tree before it hits. A stepdad who raised you, a foster sister you shared a room with, that's family, and the law's finally caught up. But unpaid is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Two weeks off doesn't help much if someone's lying awake doing the rent maths while they grieve. And nobody's talked about what happens if you change jobs mid-grief. Take two days, then move on to a new employer, and does the rest of your leave just disappear? Right now that's nobody's problem, which usually means it's the employee's problem. Small businesses need their policy sorted now, not in April, because nobody should be improvising compassion on the worst day of someone's year.
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Scott GallacherVerified
Director at Rowley Turton
No good employer objects to giving employees time off after a bereavement. Indeed, last year we increased the amount of paid bereavement leave we provide ourselves.

My concern is the growing complexity for small employers. The government talks about growth and reducing barriers to business, whilst creating additional statutory rights, procedures, and employment risks that small firms have to understand and administer.

As a day-one right, you could theoretically have someone join a business and almost immediately take bereavement leave following the death of, for example, a half-sibling. The employer then has to be extremely careful that any subsequent probation or performance decision cannot be construed as being connected with that leave.

That does not mean the right itself is wrong. But government needs to recognise that the time and money small businesses spend understanding and complying with new rules is time and money they cannot invest in growing their business.
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Tony SanchezVerified
Founder at Bridging Loan Directory
As a small business owner, I support bereavement leave recognising the families people actually have. A step-parent may have brought someone up; the label doesn’t tell you how deeply the loss will affect them.

I would favour some paid leave. Unpaid time may protect someone’s job, but it can still leave them choosing between grieving and paying the bills. If government wants a paid entitlement, it should consider how the smallest employers can be supported to provide it.

Cover is a real challenge in a small team. My approach would be to identify essential work, postpone what can wait and be honest with customers about delays. The person grieving shouldn’t have to organise their own replacement.

A clear policy helps everyone understand what support is available. It should also leave room for a conversation, because grief won’t follow the same timetable for every employee.
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Harvey DhillonVerified
Founder & CEO at Zmartly
Keeping this leave unpaid is the right call, because in a small firm the absence costs money even before wages. In a five-person team, realistically the owner covers the work, or someone is paid overtime, or invoices go out late. Adding the wage on top is too much to ask of stretched small firms. A policy that only says "immediate family" will catch you out, because the statutory list reaches step and half relations and people raised by kinship or foster carers, so check yours before April 2027. The same two weeks for every covered relationship is fairer than ranking them, because no employer should be grading someone's grief. And 56 weeks is long enough to use the leave flexibly, because it runs past the first anniversary. If someone leaves with days unused, the government hasn't said yet what happens. I don't think the days should follow them, because a new employer would be covering absence for a loss from before they were hired.
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Kelly SmallcombeVerified
Fractional Chief People Officer at Meliorem HR Consultancy
This is the right instinct landing on the wrong people. Grief doesn't run to a rota, so letting staff spread two weeks' leave across 56 weeks is genuinely good policy, it respects how loss actually works, rather than forcing it into a tidy fortnight. But for a five-person business, tracking scattered days of leave against ad hoc absence cover isn't a formality, it's a live operational problem with no extra resource attached. There was a better middle ground here: extend the right, but phase in the compliance burden for the smallest employers, or give them practical tools to administer it. As it stands, good intentions have landed on the businesses least equipped to carry them.