The bill amends the Births and Deaths Registration Acts (1926 and 1953) to redefine a "still-born child" as one born after 20 weeks' gestation instead of 24 weeks. It also amends the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992 to substitute "20 weeks" for "24 weeks" in the statutory definitions of "confinement" used for maternity allowance and statutory maternity pay.
The practical effect is legal recognition—and the paperwork that follows—for fetal deaths occurring between 20 and 24 weeks, plus corresponding shifts in which pregnancy losses count as qualifying "confinement" for certain maternity payments. That creates immediate administrative and operational work for registrars, NHS trusts and payroll/HMRC systems, and it alters how perinatal statistics will be reported for England and Wales.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill replaces every statutory reference to "24 weeks" with "20 weeks" in the Births and Deaths Registration Acts and in two provisions of the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992 that define "confinement" for maternity allowance and statutory maternity pay. It applies only to England and Wales and comes into force two months after passage.
Who It Affects
Affected parties include bereaved parents whose pregnancy ends between 20+0 and 23+6 weeks, registrars and local registration services, NHS trusts and midwifery services handling perinatal death certification, employers and payroll teams administering statutory maternity pay, and DWP/HMRC administrators who process maternity allowance and SMP claims.
Why It Matters
Shifting the legal threshold aligns UK registration law more closely with many clinical definitions and makes earlier fetal deaths formally registrable as still-births, which changes entitlements and record-keeping. That change will alter benefit-trigger mechanics, create short-term administrative costs, and disrupt time-series comparability in perinatal statistics.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The bill is narrowly targeted: it replaces the phrase "twenty-fourth week" with "twentieth week" in the statutory definition of "still-born child" in the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1926 and the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953. In practice that means a fetal death at or after 20 weeks' gestation would be treated as a still-birth for the purposes of registration, allowing parents to obtain a still-birth certificate and for the event to be entered in the civil register.
Separately, the bill alters two definitions of "confinement" in the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992—one relevant to maternity allowance and one to statutory maternity pay—so that a pregnancy ending at 20 weeks qualifies where previously 24 weeks was the cut-off. Those textual substitutions do not, on their face, change eligibility criteria beyond the timing threshold, but they change the trigger point used by employers, HMRC and DWP when they apply eligibility rules tied to "confinement."Operationally, registrars and NHS trusts will need to adjust procedures and forms to accept still-birth registrations from 20 weeks.
Employers and payroll providers must update calculations, leave records and payroll systems to reflect that a qualifying "confinement" can occur earlier in pregnancy. On the policy side, public-health and statistical bodies will need to handle a discontinuity: counts of still-births and perinatal mortality rates for England and Wales will increase relative to prior years because events between 20 and 24 weeks that were previously excluded will now be captured.The bill limits its reach to England and Wales and contains a two-month commencement window after enactment.
It does not itself create new payments, amend statutory parental leave, or change clinical guidance on management of pregnancy loss; it changes legal classification and the statutory trigger points that other benefit rules use.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The bill substitutes "twentieth week" for "twenty-fourth week" in the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1926 (section 12) and the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953 (section 41).
It replaces "24 weeks" with "20 weeks" in two places in the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992: section 35(6) (maternity allowance definition of "confinement") and section 171(1) (statutory maternity pay definition of "confinement").
The change makes fetal deaths at or after 20 weeks' gestation registrable as still-births, allowing parents to receive still-birth certificates for losses previously outside the legal definition.
Employers, payroll providers, HMRC and DWP must treat some earlier pregnancy losses (20–23+6 weeks) as qualifying "confinement" for the purpose of statutory maternity pay and maternity allowance calculations.
The Act extends only to England and Wales and comes into force two months after it is passed, creating an immediate implementation window for affected administrative systems.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Amend the statutory still-birth definition in registration law
This section replaces the 24-week threshold with 20 weeks in the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1926 (section 12) and the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953 (section 41). Practically, registrars will accept still-birth registrations and issue still-birth certificates for fetal deaths at or after 20 weeks. Local registration services will need to update forms, IT systems and staff guidance to reflect the new cut-off and to record the clinical details registrars require.
Change the 'confinement' definition for maternity payments
This section amends the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992 by substituting "20 weeks" for "24 weeks" in section 35(6) (maternity allowance) and section 171(1) (statutory maternity pay). The textual change adjusts the statutory trigger used when administrators decide whether a pregnancy loss counts as qualifying "confinement." Payroll systems, employer leave policies and DWP/HMRC processing rules that rely on the statutory definition must be reviewed and revised to apply the earlier threshold.
Territorial extent, commencement and citation
The bill states it extends to England and Wales only, comes into force at the end of the period of two months beginning with the day it is passed, and may be cited as the Still-Birth (Definition) Act 2024. The two-month window is the only implementation timeline in the bill; it does not include transitional or retrospective provisions, so all practical implementation decisions (such as guidance, system updates or retrospective registration rules) fall to registrars, the Department of Health and Social Care, DWP and HMRC to resolve.
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Explore Healthcare in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Parents experiencing pregnancy loss between 20+0 and 23+6 weeks — they can obtain a still-birth certificate and formal registration, which can matter for grieving processes, legal recognition and access to services tied to still-birth status.
- Perinatal data and public-health analysts — inclusion of 20–23+6-week losses improves alignment with clinical definitions used internationally and yields more complete surveillance of fetal deaths.
- Bereavement and clinical teams in NHS trusts — clearer legal status for earlier losses can simplify the provision of bereavement pathways and eligibility for hospital-based support services tied to registered still-births.
Who Bears the Cost
- Local registrars and registration services — must update guidance, IT systems, forms and training to accept registrations from 20 weeks, incurring administrative and implementation costs.
- Employers and payroll providers — must change payroll systems, records and leave-handling procedures to account for earlier qualifying "confinement" events when administering statutory maternity pay.
- DWP and HMRC — will need to update benefit processing rules and public guidance, and may face a short-term increase in claims or queries as newly eligible cases are processed.
- NHS trusts and maternity services — will need to adjust clinical-legal workflows (certification, recordkeeping) and staff training to account for the broader window of events treated as still-births.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central tension is between giving parents earlier legal recognition of fetal death—which supports bereavement, access to services and fuller public-health data—and imposing practical and fiscal burdens on registries, healthcare providers and benefits administrators, while also creating evidentiary and statistical complications that the bill does not itself resolve.
The bill is tightly drafted and narrowly textual: it swaps numeric thresholds without creating new benefits or procedural rules. That economy makes passage and interpretation straightforward, but it pushes hard implementation questions onto registrars, benefits administrators and healthcare providers.
The Act contains no transitional clauses, no retrospective registration rules and no guidance-making power; those practical gaps mean implementing bodies must decide whether to allow retrospective registrations, how to prove gestational age in disputed cases, and how to code and report data across the change.
A second set of tensions arises from evidence and measurement. Gestational age estimates can vary by dating method (last menstrual period vs ultrasound), and the bill does not specify which method controls for legal or benefits purposes.
That invites disputes between parents, clinicians and employers over whether a particular loss meets the 20-week threshold. Finally, because the change applies to England and Wales only, it will produce immediate discontinuities in national perinatal statistics and cross-jurisdiction comparisons within the UK unless statistical agencies smooth or annotate the series.
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