New legislation published earlier this month will entitle employed parents who have suffered the death of a child under the age of 18 to two weeks’ paid leave.
The Parental Bereavement (Leave and Pay) Bill gives employed parents the right from the first day of employment to parental bereavement leave to allow them time to grieve. The leave has to be taken within 56 days of the date of the child’s death. In the event of the death of more than one child, the parent is entitled to leave in respect of each of them.
Following an amendment in 2013 to the 1998 Public Interest Disclosure Act, workers making a qualifying disclosure have to show they have a reasonable belief that it was “in the public interest”. In Chesterton Global Ltd and anor v Nurmohamed, the Court of Appeal held that they did not, however, have to show that that was their predominant motive.
In the unusual case of Brighton & Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust v Akinwunmi and ors, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) held that where an employee was dismissed for refusing to follow a reasonable management instruction the tribunal was entitled to consider whether the employee was acting reasonably or not in refusing to obey the instruction.