Southampton woman launches petition for right to paid bereavement leave

A Southampton woman who lost both her parents before she reached her twenties is calling for all workplaces to introduce paid bereavement leave.

Alice Cutler has launched a petition calling for a legal right to two weeks off after a loved one dies, something that is currently only available for parents who have lost a child.

She began the campaign having lost her dad at nine years old, her mum at eighteen, and eight more close family members in between.

The petition needs to gather 10,000 signatures before the 5th of June to be considered for debate in parliament.

Describing how grieving her mum was "crippling", Alice told Greatest Hits Radio she's trying to "make things better for other people":

"Unfortunately, I've heard of people who have been forced back to work because they don't have bereavement leave.

"I've heard of people who have been forced to take it as unpaid or eating into their annual leave allowance for their holiday.

"I've even heard of one person that was fired."

The government have been considering introducing five unpaid days off for those who have lost a loved one, but Alice suggested this would create barriers:

"I personally think it causes more problems than it does solutions because you've got fantastic employers at the moment who already provide paid bereavement leave, who might be somewhat incentivised to reverse back to an unpaid position.

"But not only that, five days of unpaid leave is a 25% hit on your take home salary, creating a financial barrier to people being able to take that time off when they need it.

"So we need paid leave and I think it would bring us in line with other countries who already do this where it works really successfully."

You can sign Alice's petition here.

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