The UK Employment Rights Act: family friendly rights changes, flexible working and SSP

Why should I read this?

The Employment Rights Act 2025 (the “Act”) makes significant changes to family friendly rights and statutory sick pay took effect in April 2026. Further reforms to flexible working, dismissal protections and bereavement leave are planned for 2027. Employers should review policies, HR systems and management practices to ensure compliance with existing requirements and prepare for the changes ahead.

 

What does the Act say?

Flexible working

The Government published its response to the consultation on improving access to flexible working on 15 September 2026, confirming the intended process employers must follow before refusing a request. The changes are expected to take effect in October 2027, subject to the necessary regulations. Acas is separately consulting on a revised Code of Practice until 17 December 2026.

The eight statutory business grounds for refusing a flexible working request will remain unchanged. However, the Act adds two new requirements: (i) the employer’s refusal on the relevant ground must be reasonable and (ii) the employer must explain why it considers the refusal is reasonable when notifying the employee of its decision.

The Government has indicated that employers will be required to meet with the employee to consider whether the requested arrangement is feasible and, where possible, address any practical difficulties. The meeting must be conducted with a view to reaching an agreement and must take place within the two-month decision period. If the original request cannot be accommodated, the employer must explore feasible alternatives with the employee. Employers will also be required to give fair and reasonable notice of the meeting, explain its purpose in advance and provide both the outcome of the meeting and the final decision in writing.

Secondary legislation will implement the new requirements, supported by a revised statutory Acas Code of Practice.

Protection from dismissal during pregnancy, maternity and other family leave and upon return

Since April 2024, where a redundancy situation arises during the protected period of pregnancy, maternity leave and an additional protected period after returning to work (18 months after birth), an employee has the right to be offered a suitable alternative vacancy (where one is available) and will have priority over other candidates. A failure to offer this will result in any dismissal being automatically unfair and potentially discriminatory. Similar provisions apply to protect employees during and after shared parental/adoption leave.

A consultation on enhanced dismissal protections for pregnant women and new mothers was launched on 23 October 2025 and closed on 15 January 2026. On 22 October 2026, the Government published its response to the consultation and set out its policy decisions, confirming the commitment to strengthen the legal framework governing dismissal during the protected period, and to ensure that comparable protections are available to employees taking other relevant forms of family leave.

These changes will be implemented through regulations, and the precise detail is yet to be confirmed. The Government’s intention is that the proposed protections will go beyond the existing priority treatment in redundancy situations by restricting dismissal for a wider range of reasons during the protected period; a stricter test will also apply for determining the fairness of the dismissal. The employer would still be required to show one of the current potentially fair reasons for dismissal (conduct, capability, SOSR, redundancy, illegality) but it has been suggested that the current “range of reasonable responses” test will be replaced with a proportionality test, requiring employers to justify dismissal as a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. If those proposals are implemented, employers will need to identify the business objective behind the dismissal and be able to show that dismissal is a proportionate means of achieving it. Further guidance will explain how employers should apply the test in practice.

These enhanced dismissal protections will be a ‘day one’ right, with no qualifying period, meaning employees will qualify for protections from the first day of employment. They will apply once an employee has informed their employer that they are pregnant and will continue throughout maternity leave and for 6 months following the end of leave. These protections will also last for 2 weeks following the end of a pregnancy where a pregnancy ends before 24 weeks.

Those taking adoption leave will be covered from the first day of leave, with protection continuing for six months after leave ends. Protection will also apply during Shared Parental Leave, Neonatal Care Leave and Bereaved Partner’s Paternity Leave. For these forms of leave, protection will continue for six months after leave ends where the employee has taken at least six continuous weeks of the relevant leave.

Parental leave

From 6 April 2026, paternity and unpaid parental leave became day one rights and the restriction on taking paternity leave after shared parental leave was removed.

Bereavement leave

From April 2027, employees will have a day one right to take up to two weeks’ unpaid bereavement leave. The right will apply following the death of an employee’s spouse or partner, parent, adult child or sibling, and in relation to equivalent parental relationships where the employee was raised through kinship or foster care arrangements.

The right will also apply following pregnancy loss before 24 weeks, including termination and unsuccessful IVF embryo transfer. Eligible employees will include the person who experienced the pregnancy loss, their spouse, civil partner or partner, the other parent or intended co-parent, and intended parents under a surrogacy arrangement.

Leave may be taken within 56 weeks of the bereavement, either as individual days or in periods of one week. Where leave is taken within the first eight weeks, the employee will need to notify the employer only as soon as reasonably practicable, and the notification will not need to be in writing. Employees will not be required to provide evidence of their loss and will be protected from detriment or dismissal for exercising the right.

The new broader right to bereavement leave does not change the current entitlement of two weeks’ paid parental bereavement leave (available since April 2020).

The Government will publish guidance to support employers to implement bereavement leave and to help individuals understand and access their rights.

SSP

From 6 April 2026, SSP has been payable from the first day of illness, removing the three-day waiting period. In addition, the lower earnings limit (LEL) has been removed, extending eligibility to lower paid employees. The rate of SSP is set at either the flat rate in force from time to time or 80% of the employee’s average weekly earnings, whichever is lower.

Practical implications

Flexible working

• Although the Government pledged to make flexible working ‘the default’, the right to request flexible working will remain a ‘right to request’ and not an absolute right to receive it
• To prepare for the upcoming changes, employers should monitor the implementing regulations and final revised Acas Code. Employers should also anticipate an increase in flexible working applications and should be ready to explain and evidence any reason(s) for refusal fully and carefully (although many already do so in practice). Employers may wish to review their flexible working strategy, including any ‘return to office’ requirements, and revisit the business rationale for any current working arrangements to be absolutely clear and consistent in anticipation of future flexible working requests and potential ‘reasonableness’ challenge(s)
• Critically, the current compensation regime will remain unchanged, with the maximum compensation for a complaint under the flexible working regime set at eight weeks’ pay (subject to the statutory cap on a week’s pay, currently £751) – a relatively low penalty. However, employees bringing flexible working requests may also have other statutory protections, specifically potential discrimination claims, including claims alleging a failure to make reasonable adjustments and indirect discrimination (where compensation is potentially uncapped)

Parental and other leave

Extending these rights to ‘day one’ from 6 April 2026 has widened the pool of eligible employees; however, the overall impact on employers is expected to be relatively low as (i) statutory paternity leave is currently limited to two weeks only and (ii) take-up of unpaid parental leave has historically been low, reflecting both its unpaid status and relatively limited awareness of the right.

In terms of unpaid bereavement leave, those employers who do not currently offer any form of compassionate leave will see a greater impact. Others should consider how any new right to bereavement leave may interact with any existing compassionate leave policy.

SSP

• Removing the three-day waiting period and LEL increases the pool of workers eligible for SSP and impacts those employers who offer SSP only (rather than those that offer enhanced company sick pay). According to recent figures, an estimated 70% of all sick days were not qualifying days for SSP as they fell within the three-day waiting period. In addition, it has been estimated that 1.3 – 2 million workers are excluded from SSP due to falling below the current LEL.
• Critics of the previous system argued that it encouraged lower-paid workers (particularly earning below the LEL) to come to work when unwell and therefore the changes may reduce some worker presenteeism. Conversely, some employers saw the waiting days as a deterrent for employees taking short-term absences for minor illnesses and are concerned that sickness absence levels may rise as a result of these changes.

Wider reform

In July 2025, the Government launched a wider review of the entire family leave and pay system, expected to run for 18 months and including a call for evidence. This is likely to lead to further reform. After the review’s conclusion, the Government will publish its findings and a roadmap, setting out any further proposed family leave reforms and timescales. Employers should await further detail and expect change in this area.

Key actions for employers

Flexible working

• Prepare for increased volumes of flexible working requests
• Train HR teams and line managers on the statutory grounds for refusal, the requirement to consult and the need to explain why any refusal is reasonable
• Risk assess the impact of your current flexible working strategy and consider existing policies and culture around flexible working.
• Anticipate more tribunal claims to consider the reasonableness of an employer’s refusal

Protection from dismissal during pregnancy, maternity and other leave and upon return

• Ensure processes are in place to record those employees who are within a protected period, while ensuring that pregnancy and leave information is handled confidentially and in accordance with data protection requirements

Parental leave and other leave

• Train HR teams and line managers on the new entitlements, eligibility criteria and notice requirements
• Review existing bereavement leave or compassionate leave policies, and how the new statutory right may interact with existing contractual entitlements

SSP

• Review sickness absence and sick pay policies
• Ensure managers are adequately trained on managing short-term sickness absence
• Budget for increased SSP costs

Further reading

A copy of the consultation on improving access to flexible working and associated documents can be found on the government website.

A copy of the Acas consultation on a revised Code of Practice on flexible working requests can be found here: Acas consultation: draft Code of Practice on requests for flexible working.

Read our briefing on statutory neonatal care leave and pay, which came into force on 6 April 2025.

The Act received Royal Assent on 18 December 2025 and is being implemented in stages over 2026 and 2027. The Act includes 28 employment reforms and, cumulatively, the scale, breadth and complexity of the changes are significant for employers (read our tracker to keep abreast of developments, including timescales for implementation).

To support employers as they respond to the Act’s diverse measures, our more detailed briefings focus on specific topics within the Act and include the latest developments and practical implications for employers.

For our briefing focusing on the Act’s changes to:

• trade union and collective rights, read our update
• dismissal and re-engagement (“fire and rehire”), read our update
• collective redundancies, read our update
• enforcement, read our update
• zero and low hours contract workers, read our update
• unfair dismissal, read our update
• equality and harassment duties, read our update

How we can help

These reforms are prompting employers to review how they support employees’ family commitments, respond to flexible working requests and manage sickness absence. The implications extend beyond updating policies, requiring careful consideration of operational needs, workforce costs, management practices and litigation risk. 

Our employment team can help employers assess the impact on their business, review leave and sick pay arrangements, strengthen decision-making processes and equip HR teams and line managers to apply the changes consistently and sensitively. We can also advise on navigating enhanced dismissal protections and balancing flexible working requests with business requirements. Our support covers both changes already in force and practical preparation for forthcoming reforms, helping employers align compliance with their wider workforce objectives.