The Employment Rights Bill will make paternity leave and unpaid parental leave “day-one” rights from April 2026, removing the current 26-week/one-year service rules.
What’s changing?
Currently, statutory paternity leave requires 26 weeks’ service and unpaid parental leave 12 months’ service. The Employment Rights Bill abolishes both qualifying periods, turning them into day-one rights for all employees.
Implementation is pencilled in for April 2026 in the government’s published roadmap.
Practical steps
Plan for policies – family-leave documents will need to reflect the new eligibility so plan now to avoid headaches later.
Manager training – ensure your managers are up to speed with what the new position will look like so they’re well placed to deal with earlier requests.
Check your systems – ensure your payroll and HR systems are set up (or will be set up) to handle the changing change in leave/pay entitlements from day one of employment.
Enhanced benefits – if you top-up paternity pay or offer paid parental leave, decide whether to extend enhancements to new hires from day one.
A review of the wider family-leave entitlements is running alongside these changes and may tweak entitlements further. We’ll keep you posted!
Need help keeping your People Team on top of all the ERB changes? Our annual People Team Training could be the solution – find out more.
This update is accurate on the date it was published but may be subject to change which may or may not be notified to you. This update is not to be taken as advice and you should seek advice if anything contained within affects you or your business.
