1. Introduction to Time Off Work

Contributing Editor

MARTINA MURPHY LLM

of Gray's Inn, Barrister, Outer Temple Chambers

Employment legislation has, in recent years, added considerably to the range of rights to be given time off work, either with or without pay. Apart from the statutory right to paid annual leave under the Working Time Regulations 1998, which is relatively unusual in applying not just to employees in the narrow sense, but also to the wider class of workers, the most important rights to time off work conferred on employees are in relation to maternity leave, extended in 2003 to paternity and adoption leave, and the right of parents of both sexes to (unpaid) parental leave. Each of these rights is covered elsewhere (see for annual leave CI [125] ff, for maternity leave J [151]