Guidance

Business changes that affect payment of Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay

Find out what to do if, as an employer, you cease trading, become insolvent, take over an existing business or make employees redundant when paying Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay.

From:
Department for Business and Trade, HM Revenue & Customs, and Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy
Published
6 April 2020
Last updated
16 July 2020 — See all updates

You take over a business

If the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations (TUPE Regulations) 2006 apply, then continuity of employment is not broken. These regulations apply when you:

  • take over a business, part of a business or a service provision
  • take on, at the same time, the contracts of employment of the employees being transferred

The transferor or employer must provide ‘employee liability information’. This gives the identities of those employees being transferred with the business.

If you are not sure if the TUPE Regulations apply contact The Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas), or in Northern Ireland contact the Labour Relations Agency.

If the TUPE regulations do not apply, continuity of employment may still not be broken when:

  • a teacher in a school maintained by a local education authority moves to another school maintained by the same authority - this includes maintained schools where school governors, rather than the local education authority, are the teacher’s employer
  • one corporate body takes over from another as the employer by or under an Act of Parliament
  • the employer dies and their personal representative or trustees keep the employee on
  • there is a change in the partners, personal representatives or trustees
  • the employee moves from one employer to another and at the time of the move the 2 employers are associated

If continuity of employment is not broken, your employee can get Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay as long as they work for you and the previous employer during the 26 weeks ending with the relevant week.

If continuity of employment is broken and you take on a business:

  • after the death of a child or stillbirth, the previous employer must pay Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay to your employee
  • before the death of the child or stillbirth, your employee cannot get Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay

You cease to trade

If you stop trading you remain liable to pay any outstanding Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay until either:

  • your employee has received their full entitlement
  • their entitlement ends for some other reason

You become insolvent

If you become insolvent during the Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay period HMRC will pay your employee’s Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay from the date of the insolvency.

You should advise your employee to Contact HMRC.

You, the administrator, liquidator or other similar must tell HMRC. Your employees are then paid as soon as possible.

Your employee is made redundant

If you make your employee redundant you’re still liable to continue paying Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay providing all the qualifying conditions have been met.

Published 6 April 2020
Last updated 16 July 2020 + show all updates

  1. The contact details for the Statutory Payment Dispute team have been updated.

  2. First published.

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