The legal right to paid parental bereavement leave is called “Jack’s Law” in memory of Jack Herd whose mother Lucy campaigned tirelessly for 10 years on the issue. Lucy’s 23-month-old son Jack, drowned in a pond in 2010 and his father returned to work just three days after his death. Thanks to Lucy Herd, parents who suffer who suffer the devastating loss of a child will be entitled to 2 weeks’ statutory leave.
The Parental Bereavement Leave and Pay Regulations and the Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay (General) Regulations 2020 (Jack’s Law) implement a statutory right to a minimum of 2 weeks’ leave for all employed parents if they lose a child under the age of 18, or suffer a stillbirth from 24 weeks of pregnancy, irrespective of how long they have worked for their employer.
The regulations come into effect on 6 April 2020, and allow a parent to take either one or two weeks’ paid leave (the two weeks can be separate). The leave is paid at the lower of £151.20 per week or 90% of salary. Parents will be able to take the leave as either a single block of 2 weeks, or as 2 separate blocks of one week each taken at different times across the first year after their child’s death. This means they can match their leave to the times they need it most, which could be in the early days or over the first anniversary.
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