Coalition of major UK employers calls on Business Secretary to introduce paid leave for kinship carers

• Tesco, B&Q, trade unions and leading business organisations sign open letter urging Business Secretary to close unfair gap in employment rights for kinship carers
• New YouGov research shows 76% of UK employers support a government-funded paid leave scheme for kinship carers
• Our latest data reveals that a lack of paid leave is harming children entering kinship care, with 41% of carers reporting increased stress or anxiety among children and 32% saying it made it harder for children to manage trauma
• Over one year into the Government’s review of parental leave and pay, we’re calling for legislation to give kinship carers a legal right to paid time off work when they take on the care of a child

A coalition of major employers, trade unions and business organisations, including Tesco and B&Q, has joined forces with Kinship to call on the Government to introduce statutory paid leave for kinship carers.

In an open letter to Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds, they urge ministers to close what they describe as a significant gap in employment rights that leaves kinship carers without access to paid leave when they take on the care of a child.

The call comes as new YouGov polling we commissioned reveals overwhelming employer backing for change. A survey of 1,021 HR decision-makers found that 76% support a nationally funded statutory paid leave scheme for kinship carers.

The findings are published over a year into the Government’s review of parental leave and pay, which is considering how employment rights can better support working families, including kinship carers.
Kinship carers are relatives or family friends who step up to raise children when their parents can’t.

Around 141,000 children in England and Wales are being raised in kinship care. This provides them with loving, stable homes and prevents them going into the wider care system with someone they don’t know and saves the public purse millions.

Yet unlike birth parents and adoptive parents, kinship carers have no statutory right to paid leave when a child comes into their care. Many are expected to return to work immediately, despite taking on responsibility for children who may have experienced trauma, loss and instability.

As a result, many kinship carers are forced to quit jobs across all sectors including retail, the NHS and education and pushed on to benefits, damaging family finances, careers and children’s wellbeing. The charity argues that paid leave would help children and their kinship carers adjust to their new lives providing the financial, emotional and practical stability families need.

Our new research based on a survey of 1,245 kinship carers, highlights the impact on children when carers are unable to take paid time away from work:

• 41% said the lack of paid leave increased a child’s stress or anxiety.
• 32% said it made it harder for children to manage trauma.
• 30% said it created challenges in accessing or settling into childcare or nursery provision.

Kinship carers also identified significant benefits that paid leave could provide:

• 66% said it would help children bond and settle into their new home.
• 48% said it would reduce financial pressure on families.
• 47% said it would allow carers time to adjust to their new responsibilities.

Many forward-thinking employers like Tesco and B&Q have joined our Kinship Friendly Employers scheme and introduced workplace policies to support kinship carers, recognising both the social and business benefits of doing so.

However, we argue that voluntary action alone cannot deliver consistent support for families. The YouGov research found that employers see the lack of government funding as the biggest barrier to introducing paid kinship leave, alongside limited awareness of kinship care and uncertainty about how a leave scheme would operate.

Our previous research demonstrates the scale of the challenge:

• 45% of working kinship carers lose their job after taking on the care of a child.
• 80% of those who leave work never return to employment.
• 40% are forced to claim benefits or increase existing benefit claims.
• 51% say paid leave would have enabled them to return to work sooner or maintain employment.

Thousands of people have added their names to our #ValueOurLove campaign petition calling for paid leave for kinship carers. 

Lucy Peake, Kinship’s Chief Executive said:

“Kinship carers enable children to stay within loving families, providing stability and better outcomes for children compared to children in other forms of non-parental care, while saving the public purse millions.

“When employers see the unfairness of the current law, they want to act and some are already leading the way.

“However, voluntary employer action is not enough. Legislative change must happen in this Parliament. Kinship carers take on life-changing responsibilities for children who have experienced trauma and loss. They must be treated fairly, and our parental leave policies brought firmly into the 21st century.”

A growing number of employers are now backing calls for Government action.

Mary Redcliffe, Director of People Operations and Experience at B&Q said:

“Kinship carers need supporting just as much as any other colleague who is a primary carer for a child, so that they can be at their best when working and when caring for the child.

“We have a Kinship Care Leave policy not only because we believe it’s the right thing to do – to give equitable leave – but also because it helps us to retain talented and skilled colleagues.

“Whilst many employers are supportive of Kinship Care Leave, the lack of statutory provision means there’s inconsistencies and uncertainty for kinship carers. It’s a gap that needs to be closed and we’re supportive of creating greater consistency through statutory provision.”

Natasha Rice, Group Reward and Wellbeing Director at Tesco said:

“Providing paid kinship leave is the right thing to do for families and for business.

“At Tesco, it helps us retain talented colleagues and provide them with security at a time in their life when they are stepping up and providing a safe and loving home to a child.

“While there’s growing support for kinship carers amongst employers, there are still far too many instances of people being unable to access the support they need and that’s why Government backing, and raising awareness, is crucial.”

Joanne Thomas, General Secretary at Usdaw said:

“Statutory parental leave and pay rights need an urgent update to include everyone who has parental responsibility for raising a child, including kinship carers.

“Kinship carers step in often at short notice to raise children whose parents can’t and yet they are expected to be back at work the following day. The absence of a period of paid leave means kinship carers are at high risk of dropping out of the labour market altogether or being compelled to reduce their hours at a time when they can least afford to.

“Paid leave has long been available to birth and adoptive parents and rightly so. Making it available to kinship carers is long overdue. Providing support to a comparably small number of parents at this crucial time in their lives and the lives of the children they raise costs relatively little but means an awful lot.”

Kinship carer Lucy, 32, and her partner 32 from Cleethorpes were refused paid leave from their corporate companies when they became kinship carers to their two-day old nephew in 2023.

Lucy received six weeks compassionate leave but couldn’t cope juggling a baby and a full-time job and had no choice but to temporarily take sick leave, before placing her 4-month-old nephew in childcare and returning to work.

She said: “I obviously didn’t want that to happen as it’s vital for newborn babies to build a bond and have 1-2-1 developmental support, but again I had no choice as I had to keep earning to keep our home and bills stable.

“You go through so much stress when you become a kinship carer and paid employment leave would have been one less thing for us to worry about. Instead of having that time with him I was worried sick all the time. Why should our children be disadvantaged?”

Kinship carer and mother-of-two Samantha, 42, from Doncaster had to give up her full-time teaching assistant job so she could care for her 7-month-old great nephew when she couldn’t get paid leave from work.

Samantha said: “I thought I was done with nappies and night feeds and had teenage children and a job I enjoyed. But suddenly it was a case of either I took in my baby great nephew, or he would be adopted.

“I had colleagues who were taking adoption and maternity leave but there was nothing in place for kinship carers like me. It was a hard decision to make, but I had no choice other than to quit my job.

“If I’d had the opportunity to take paid leave from work with the option of working flexibly, that would have been a massive help. It’s not fair that we are doing the right thing by keeping children within the family but are not receiving any support to help us do that.

“Now I’m forced to rely on benefits, I can’t work and my mental health has suffered.”