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Protection against detriment or dismissal

Employees are protected from suffering a detriment or dismissal for taking, or seeking to take, paternity leave.

Detrimental treatment and paternity leave

An employer must not subject an employee to any detriment by acting or deliberately failing to act, because they took or sought to take paternity leave.

Examples of detrimental treatment include denial of promotion, facilities or training opportunities which normally would have been available to the employee.

If you believe you have suffered detrimental treatment under these circumstances, then you should raise a grievance with your employer.

Dismissal and paternity leave

You should not be dismissed or be selected for redundancy because you took, or sought to take, paternity leave. Your employer cannot prevent you from returning to work after your paternity leave ends.

If you are dismissed by your employer in these circumstances, then you can make a complaint of unfair dismissal to an employment tribunal (or industrial tribunal in Northern Ireland), regardless of your length of service.

Redundancy during paternity leave

If there is a redundancy situation at the same time as you are on paternity leave, you must be treated the same as any other employee under the circumstances. This includes being consulted about the redundancy or considered for any other suitable job vacancies.

What is the law guide

The Desktop Lawyer law guide aims to present the law to you in a comprehensive yet jargon-free and easy-to-read format. Our law guide is constantly kept up to date with changes in business and family law by our team of in house solicitors, and includes information across all the legal jurisdictions in the UK.

Our law guide is free to use. Where we provide documents related to this area of law, or where they may help you with any legal issue in this area, they will be listed to the right of this message.

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