Royal Assent granted for the new Carer’s Leave Act 2023

The Carer’s Leave Bill was given Royal Assent on the 24th of May 2023 and will become an Act of Parliament, known as The Carer’s Leave Act 2023.

Under The Carer’s Leave Act 2023, from the first day of employment, an employee has a right to receive one week’s unpaid leave from work within any period of 12 months in order “to provide or arrange care for a dependent with a long-term care need”.

For the purposes of this legislation, the Government has provided the following definitions:

• A dependent can be a spouse, civil partner, child, or parent of the employee who lives in the same household as the employee (other than being the employee’s boarder, employee, lodger, or tenant) and who reasonably relies on the employee to provide or arrange care.
• A long-term care need refers to if the dependent has an illness or injury requiring (or likely to require) care for over 3 months, they have a disability as outlined under the Equality Act 2010, or if they require care for a reason connected with their old age.

One week is the statutory minimum and refers to the number of days normally worked, or expected to work, during the requested time.

However, employers can offer additional days’ entitlement or offer this time as paid leave, if they wish to do so.

Eligible employees are not required to provide evidence for their request, such as how or who the leave will be taken for.

Instead, employees are just required to self-certify.

And employees who utilise carer’s leave are protected from automatic unfair dismissal or detriment.

Furthermore, the employees can decide whether to take leave as a full block or divided into days or half days, in order to accommodate the employee’s specific circumstances.

The date of implementation is not yet confirmed; however, the earliest estimates are set for April 2024, during which time more information will be confirmed.