Law and Labour » Paternity leave http://lawandlabour.com Employment law issues Wed, 26 Mar 2025 18:43:42 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.38 Employment Rights Bill introduced http://lawandlabour.com/employment-rights-bill-introduced/ http://lawandlabour.com/employment-rights-bill-introduced/#comments Tue, 22 Oct 2024 14:31:05 +0000 http://lawandlabour.com/?p=2774 On 10 October 2024, a new Employment Rights Bill (the “Bill“) was introduced into the House of Commons. The Bill contains a suite of provisions covering a wide range of employment rights. The Government has announced its intention to consult on the changes proposed in the Bill with the expectation that most of its reforms will not take effect before 2026. It is hoped that will give businesses sufficient time to prepare for the changes.

The Government has published 10 factsheets that provide further details of the measures included in the Bill. The factsheets cover:

zero hours contracts; unfair dismissal; trade unions; statutory sick pay; school support staff negotiating body; fire and rehire; the Fair Work Agency; bereavement leave, paternity leave and unpaid parental leave; the adult social care negotiating body; and the Employment Rights Bill overview.

Each factsheet typically sets out the current legal framework applicable to a particular employment right. It then describes the Government’s aims for the proposed changes and briefly describes the proposals.

The table below summarises some key proposals as described in the relevant factsheet:

Zero hours contracts Employers will be required to offer qualifying workers guaranteed hours reflecting the hours worked during a 12-week reference period. A qualifying worker may elect to reject an offer of guaranteed hours and instead remain on their current contract. Employers will be required to provide qualifying workers with reasonable notice of shifts and changes to these. If an employer cancels, moves or curtails a shift at short notice, they will be required to pay the affected workers. Unfair dismissal Employees will automatically have protection from unfair dismissal from the first day of employment, subject to a statutory probation period. The statutory probation period will last for nine months during which a “lighter touch” dismissal process will apply. The right to written reasons for dismissal will apply once the statutory probation period has concluded. Fire and rehire Where employees are dismissed for failing to agree to a change in their employment contract, the dismissal will be automatically unfair. It will also be unfair to dismiss an employee in order to replace them or to re-engage them on varied contractual terms. The employer may have a defence to such a dismissal if it can show: the business was facing financial difficulties that affected its viability; the contractual variations proposed were to eliminate, prevent or mitigate the effects of such difficulties; and changing the contract was unavoidable. The employer is required to act fairly in making the dismissal, which must be fair in all the circumstances. Family-related leave Bereavement leave will become a new, day one right. Employees may take at least one week’s leave within a 56-day period. There will no longer be any qualifying period for the right to take paternity leave or unpaid parental leave. Employees will no longer have to take paternity leave prior taking shared parental leave. Fair Work Agency (FWA) A new advisory body on employment rights, called the Fair Work Agency, will be set up. The FWA will also have the remit to investigate and take enforcement action for breaches of employment law. The FWA will be an offshoot of the Department of Business and Trade, with its functions [...]]]> http://lawandlabour.com/employment-rights-bill-introduced/feed/ 0 Share and share alike http://lawandlabour.com/share-and-share-alike/ http://lawandlabour.com/share-and-share-alike/#comments Sun, 08 Mar 2015 09:36:09 +0000 http://lawandlabour.com/?p=1855 The countdown is on to the start of shared parental leave, a new type of leave available for parents of children born or placed for adoption on or after 5 April 2015. Shared parental leave provides parents with an alternative to the classic roster of maternity, paternity and adoption leave.

The process commences when a mother cuts short her maternity or adoption leave in order to return to work. The other parent then goes on shared parental leave to care of the child. Up to 52 weeks’ shared parental leave may be taken – the same duration as maternity leave or adoption leave. Leave can be taken as one single block of leave or as discontinuous blocks, with parents passing care of the baby back and forth between them. An employee is automatically entitled to take shared parental leave as a continuous block, but an employer may reject a request for discontinuous leave.

Image licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0

The potential headache for employers is the numerous notices and timings which administration of shared parental leave entails. There is also the difficulty of trying to agree two sets of leave arrangements between different employers. It is recommended that employees are encouraged to discuss any plans for shared parental leave as early as possible so that their employers can consider how to accommodate their request.

A number of protections apply to a parent who takes or is thinking of taking shared parental leave. During shared parental leave the employee’s terms and conditions of employment remain unchanged, with the exception of pay. If a redundancy situation arises while the employee is on leave, they should be offered alternative employment ahead of other employees. When leave ends, the employee must return to the same job. If the employee has taken more than 26 weeks’ leave and it is no longer reasonably practicable for them to return to their old job, they must be offered a job that is suitable and appropriate and whose terms and conditions are not less favourable.

Employees have the right not to be dismissed or subjected to detrimental treatment because they have taken or are considering taking shared parental leave. Any such dismissal will be automatically unfair.

If parents opt for shared parental leave, they are entitled to receive up to 39 weeks’ shared parental pay between them. This will be paid at the weekly rate of £139.58.

Employers who offer enhanced maternity pay will need to decide whether they want to offer enhanced shared parental pay as well. The consequences of failing to do so may be a claim for direct or indirect sex discrimination. It is expected that the uptake of shared parental leave will be influenced by whether employers choose to offer enhanced shared parental pay.

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