With Brexit soon to be resolved, it is likely there could be a shakeup of employment law. Last month we predicted this would not necessarily be doom and gloom for equality and working time as Boris Johnson would not want to alienate the Red Wall seats won in December’s election.

One sign of some progressive employment law policies is the introduction of parental bereavement leave from April 2020. The Parental Bereavement Leave and Pay Regulations, more commonly known as Jack’s Law in honour of Jack Herd, whose parents campaigned for the leave, will allow parents of deceased or stillborn children to take up to two weeks of bereavement leave.

The leave can be taken in one go or two blocks of one week in the 56 weeks following the child’s death. This would allow time off on the anniversary or other difficult times. The law follows a campaign to ensure that parents are allowed more than the current 3 days bereavement leave for a child.

An expansion of parental bereavement leave is to be applauded as the impact of the death or still birth of a child will understandably impact an employee for more than 3 days. However, it could be argued that two weeks may not be enough in some circumstances, especially when the parent has other children who are also grieving. However an increase from 3 to 14 days is certainly a huge step forward.