Government backs paid miscarriage bereavement leave

The government has said it supports bereavement leave for couples who experience a miscarriage.

Business Minister Justin Madders told MPs he "fully accepts" the principle of bereavement leave for pregnancy loss and promised to look at adding the right to the Employment Rights Bill.

Currently employees are eligible for parental bereavement leave if they or their partner have a stillbirth after 24 weeks of pregnancy.

Labour MP Sarah Owen, who chairs the Women and Equalities Committee, has been calling for this right to be extended in cases where miscarriages take place before 24 weeks.

Speaking in the House of Commons, Madders said: "Bereavement is not an illness, it's not a holiday and it does need its own special category."

He added: "I am grateful to the work of the Women and Equalities Committee for raising the important issue of miscarriage leave.

"The loss of a baby at any stage is an incredibly difficult personal experience and the inquiry they conducted demonstrated a clear gap in support for those who experience pregnancy loss and need time to recover and grieve."

He said Owen had shown "great bravery" in speaking about her own experience of having a miscarriage.

In 2021, Owen told MPs that after her own miscarriage she felt physically better in a few days but had "all the classic signs" of grieving.

"I could not eat, I could not sleep. I really did not hold much hope that life would ever get brighter," she said.

Owen and her committee have proposed changes to the Employment Rights Bill which would ensure parents bereaved as a result of a pregnancy loss are entitled to two weeks of leave.

During a debate on the bill on Tuesday, Madders said: "We fully accept the principle of bereavement leave for pregnancy loss, as raised in the amendments, and we look forward to further discussions with [Owen] and [peers] as the Bill moves on to its next stages in the Lords."

Owen said she was "so pleased" to hear the minister's commitment.

Introducing a legal right to miscarriage bereavement leave would be "a leading light in a world which seems to be taking a backward step in women's rights," she added.

Vicki Robinson, CEO of the Miscarriage Association, said: "We are extremely pleased to see, that for the first time ever, those experiencing pre-24-week pregnancy loss will be officially recognised in bereavement leave legislation.

"While we had been seeking paid leave, and the present commitment appears to be for unpaid leave, it nevertheless represents a significant step forward and provides long-overdue validation that this type of loss can be experienced as a bereavement like any other."

The bill aims to strengthen workers' rights in areas including unfair dismissals, flexible working and sick pay.

Opening the debate, Madders said it was a "landmark bill" that would "tackle low pay, poor working conditions and poor job security".

Greg Smith, the Conservative shadow business minister, said he backed the government on bereavement leave for pregnancy loss but added that in the "vast majority" of the bill the government had got the balance between the rights employees and employers "wrong".

Smith has proposed several amendments to the bill which would require the government to carry out impact assessments on the measures being introduced.

Former Labour minister Louise Haigh and Lib Dem MP Layla Moran have proposed an amendment which would ban non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) in cases of sexual misconduct, abuse, harassment and discrimination in the workplace.

Haigh, who resigned as transport secretary last year, said: "NDAs have a perfectly legitimate use in business to protect commercial confidentiality and trade.

"But they are frequently misused in order to bully people into silence when they have already suffered at work."

Madders said it was "an important issue that warrants further consideration" but did not commit to accepting their amendment.

Stella Creasy, Labour MP for Walthamstow, is trying to amend the bill to provide greater protections for paternity or parental partner leave.

The bill currently gives workers the right to paternity leave from day one of their employment, instead of the current 26 weeks.

Creasy's amendment would compel the government to review and consult on the period of protected paternity and parental partner leave, which currently stands at two weeks.

She said that was not long enough, adding that the UK had "the worst" paternity leave entitlement in the whole of the EU.

Madders said the government would be holding a review of the parental leave system, which would be separate from the bill.

Creasy's amendment had support from 81 MPs including 50 Labour backbenchers but she did not push it to a vote.