The HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) Software Developer Support Team (SDST) have shared early information on changes applicable to statutory payment as operated for those who have employee who work in Northern Ireland.
New rights and entitlements are now being applied by the Northern Ireland Assembly and will apply from April 2026.
Dear PAYadvice.UK,
Please find below information regarding Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay (SPBP) from April 2026, provided for software developers by our colleagues at HMRC’s Customer Strategy and Tax Design.
Statutory Parental Bereavement Leave Miscarriage & Expected Earnings
Executive Summary of Change
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)
Further details of 2026-27 changes will follow shortly.
Kind regards,
Software Developer Support Team
HMRC CDIO EPS | Enterprise Integration Services
Opinion
This introduces new entitlements and right to those gainfully employed in Northern Ireland. Where the payment align with Great Britain, then the calculations and values including reporting are likely to be the same. Where this change brings in extended rights, the. Employers are being required to report any payments separately in relation to Northern Ireland.
Of course, good software will be updated to offer automated options for making this payment where there are Northern Ireland based employees. However, this looks as if there may be new data requirements to start distinguishing the devolved location of employees within a UK employer to enable the payroll and HR software to verify and determine who the new rights apply to, to enable the correct calculation and payment, and then to report appropriately to HMRC and make the relevant recovery and compensation reclaims.
PAYadvice.UK 25/6/2025 updated