27 June 2025
HM Revenue and Customs’ (HMRC’s) Software Developer Support Team (SDST) has given a small insight into changes coming for Parental Bereavement Leave and Pay in Northern Ireland.
The email, sent to developers, contains the below information indicating the changes required of RTI and EPS systems:
“The Parental Bereavement (Leave and Pay) Act 2018 was introduced to support and manage grief in the workplace following a loss of a child. This policy along with the regulations were introduced for implementation in April 2020 in England, Scotland, and Wales. As the Northern Ireland (NI) Assembly was suspended between January 2017 and January 2020 this policy could not be adopted by NI in parallel with Britain. Follow the NI Assembly’s return, NI introduced Statutory Parental Bereavement Leave/Pay (SPBL/P) through the Parental Bereavement (Leave and Pay) Act (Northern Ireland) 2022. This Act provided for a two phased implementation. The first phase mirrored the GB provisions for SPBP/L and was brought into effect in April 2022. The second phase introduced changes to the eligibility criteria that will apply only in NI, and so required a longer implementation period.
These changes are:
- Access to parental bereavement pay as a Day 1 right in the cases of stillbirth and child death, thereby removing the 26 week continuous employment criteria which will continue to apply in Britain.
- Inclusion of miscarriage (up to 24 weeks) as part of the bereavement provision (also available from the first day of employment).
- The Miscarriage element of the bereavement payment and the Day 1 right for parental bereavement payments only applies to claimants gainfully employed in Northern Ireland and on whose behalf an employer makes Class 1 National Insurance Contributions.
- Payments made under the distinct elements of the NI entitlement for miscarriage payments in NI and the Day 1 right for parental bereavement payments to be reported and accounted for separately.
Solution Design
IT changes will focus on enhancing Real Time Information (RTI) and its supporting systems to include the new Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay type with
- Three new data items to the Full Payment Submission (FPS)
- Two new data items boxes to the Employer Payment Summary (EPS).
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