Protection from Redundancy (Pregnancy and Family Leave) Bill

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

3rd reading
Friday 3rd February 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Kevin Hollinrake)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate with you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. First, let me thank my friend the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) for bringing this important Bill forward for debate. It is one of three very important measures we are taking through the House today. We have this Bill on protection from redundancy, the Bill on carer’s leave introduced by the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) and the Bill on the right to request regular hours, promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South (Scott Benton). Those measures are on top of other workplace changes that we have made or are making, such as those on neonatal care leave, the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Bill, which we debated only a couple of weeks ago, and measures on the right to request flexible working.

That is not really consistent with the implication of the hon. Member for Bradford East (Imran Hussain) that the Government are going backwards on workers’ rights; far from it, we are absolutely taking this forward. He talked about the vehicle for doing so, and personally I think it is an absolute honour to be able to take through a piece of legislation such as this; it is a great honour for the hon. Member for Barnsley Central. I have had the chance to take through legislation on a couple of occasions during my career as a Back Bencher, and it is great to be able to do that, so I do not agree with the point made by the hon. Member for Bradford East. There are different ways of taking legislation forward in this place, and a private Member’s Bill is a perfectly appropriate one. The Government support this measure.

As we improve workers’ rights, it is however important to say—a number of my colleagues have referred to this, as did the hon. Member for Barnsley Central—that we must also consider the impacts on business. Clearly there are extra costs in measures such as these; the costs here are about £30 million initially for business through familiarisation costs and ongoing costs of about £1 million a year. We must consider the burdens on businesses as we take these measures forward.

There is a recognition now that, although covid’s effects on our freedoms were temporary, the effects on the workplace are much more long term, and workers clearly now want a fairer and more flexible workplace. Business needs to provide that fair and flexible workplace if we are to solve some of the labour challenges across our nation. Those challenges are not just affecting this nation; many are attributing our labour shortages to Brexit, but I do not accept that characterisation. These problems are arising across the world; for instance, the USA currently has 10.7 million vacancies with only about 6 million people looking for work, a higher ratio of vacancies to people looking for work than ours. There are challenges right across the globe.

[James Sunderland]

The Minister is making a persuasive argument and I agree with everything he is saying. We heard earlier about the economic benefits of the Bill, and it is imperative to get more people back into the workplace. In Bracknell Forest in 2009, the birth rate was 1.86. It came down in 2019 to 1.65, and has come down again in 2022 to 1.58. Fewer women across the country are having children, which will have a detrimental effect on our economy in the future. Does the Minister agree that this Bill might encourage women to start families and have children, because they know employers will respect their rights and that they will not be discriminated against?

May I also raise the importance of early years funding, even though that is not a responsibility of the Minister’s Department? It is essential that we do more to allow women to go back to work with their young children in early years care, for which we need more funding.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I heard my hon. Friend’s comments earlier about recognising the pressures on businesses and making sure that we consider their interests when making legislation, and I entirely agree with what he says. Some 575,000 people of working age have left the workplace since the pandemic started. We want to attract more of those people back to work, because they have an important role to play. There are talented people outside the workforce, and businesses need more people in the workplace; measures such as those in the Bill are required.

I liked the description of this legislation by the hon. Member for Barnsley Central as a sweet spot. It is absolutely right that we consider the interests of business alongside those of workers. My hon. Friend the Member for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Mohindra) talked about his small business background in his speech, rightly again looking at the interests of business as well as those of workers.

I thank all Members who have spoken on this important matter today and in previous stages; I am grateful for their participation. I also repeat the thanks from the hon. Member for Barnsley Central to my ministerial predecessors, my hon. Friends the Members for Watford (Dean Russell), for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully) and for Loughborough (Jane Hunt) and to others for their work in getting us to this stage, and I am pleased to confirm that the Government continue to support the Bill.

It has been heartening to observe support for the Bill from across the House, and I was pleased to hear that reflected in the debate. No one should have to face pregnancy and maternity discrimination. It has a pernicious effect on the immediate and longer-term employment prospects for women, and for businesses it can act as a drag on equality, productivity and, indeed, their reputation generally. That is why I am pleased that we are here today. The Government—indeed, the Business Secretary and I—are committed to ensuring that the UK is the best place in the world to start and scale a business. We need a strong and flexible labour market that supports participation and economic growth.

I would like to put on the record why the Government are supporting the Bill. When we talk about female economic empowerment, we tend to talk about positive, facilitative policies—parental leave and pay, flexible working, women on boards and so on—looking to drive positive action to achieve good or better outcomes. To help those policies have maximum impact, we also need to clamp down on poor or inappropriate practices such as discriminating against pregnant women or new mothers, or waiting for a woman to return from maternity leave when the current protected period ends and then making her redundant.

We know that one of the key drivers of the gender pay gap is the time when women stay away from work. Ensuring that women are not needlessly forced out of the workplace is therefore an important way of tackling that inequality and maximising the economic contribution that women can make. As the hon. Member for Barnsley Central explained to the House, the incidence of pregnancy and maternity discrimination and the poor treatment of pregnant women and new mothers is far too high. This is an unacceptable situation.

The law is absolutely clear that discriminating against women on the grounds of their pregnancy or because they are on maternity leave is unlawful. Legislation is in place in the Equality Act 2010, which every employer must follow. There are also regulations under the Employment Rights Act 1996 and the Maternity and Parental Leave etc. Regulations 1999—the so-called MAPLE regulations—which currently put a woman on maternity leave, or a parent on adoption or shared parental leave, in a preferential position in a redundancy situation. My hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon) made the key point that that also applies to adoptive parents. It was announced in the December 2019 Queen’s Speech that the Government would extend those redundancy protections to prevent pregnancy and maternity discrimination.

Earlier in 2019, the Government had consulted on extending the existing redundancy protections into pregnancy and for a period of return to work following relevant leave. The relevant types of leave are maternity, adoption and shared parental leave. Consultation respondents strongly agreed that six months would be an adequate period of time for redundancy protections to be in place after an individual on maternity leave has returned to work. Consultation respondents also strongly agreed that protection should be extended to parents who had taken adoption or shared parental leave. The Government’s consultation response committed to extend redundancy protection during pregnancy and for six months after a new mother has returned to work, and to afford the same protections to those returning from adoption leave and shared parental leave.

Under MAPLE, before making an employee on maternity leave redundant, employers have an obligation to offer them, and not just to invite them to apply for, a suitable alternative vacancy where one is available. The Bill is important as it will allow us through regulations to extend MAPLE protection into pregnancy and for a period following the birth of the child covering the return to work period. The existing protection that applies when a parent is taking relevant leave will remain unchanged.

Let me now address some of the points made by Members today. The hon. Member for Barnsley Central made an important point about extending the window of access to employment tribunals. As I think he knows, tribunals do have discretion; they can, in specific circumstances, look at individual cases brought outside that three-month window which might normally be deemed to be out of time. The number of circumstances that might not fit within the window has increased owing to covid and other pressures, such as waiting lists. We are considering these matters, and will, I am sure, engage in further conversations with the hon. Gentleman.

We have talked before about the requirement for six consecutive weeks of leave that needs to be taken to qualify for extended leave, which was mentioned today by both the hon. Member for Barnsley Central and the hon. Member for Bradford East. We are looking carefully at that requirement, but the purpose of the qualification period is to ensure that these measures are targeted at those who need them most—those who have taken an extended period of leave, not just, for example, two weeks’ paternity leave. Consultations are ongoing, and we are giving the issue earnest consideration. However, I can assure the hon. Member for Barnsley Central and other Members that our interests are aligned with those of workers, and that the people who really need this extra support are at the front of the queue.

My hon. Friend the Member for Orpington rightly raised the issue of balance between workers and businesses. My hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Angela Richardson) spoke movingly of her own experiences. It was wonderful to hear that she has three children, but she also had three mishaps along the way. I am lucky enough to have four healthy children, but along the way my wife and I had a number of miscarriages, so we have had similar experiences and I do know how distressing it is when this happens. My hon. Friend talked about her experiences of miscarriage, and I think it is fair to say that it is far from straightforward. Pregnancy can be a wonderful time, but it can also be very challenging—a period of highs and lows even at the best of times. There can be pretty severe mental and physical impacts, which we should always bear in mind, and that is why this kind of flexibility in the workplace is so important. The last thing that any employer should do is add an injustice to insult and injury.

My hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South talked about the Government’s excellent record on workers’ rights. The death of workers’ rights has often been greatly exaggerated during debates in the House, but we are strengthening rather than diminishing them. In this regard we have always been way ahead of the pack, including European Union member states. I look forward to the debate that we shall have later today on the Second Reading of my hon. Friend’s excellent Workers (Predictable Terms and Conditions) Bill.

My hon. Friend the Member for South West Hertfordshire talked about his nieces and nephews, and his wish to ensure that they would be given equal treatment when they entered the workplace. Good employers always do that, of course, but in this instance we have in mind employers who do not do the right thing, and this legislation is intended to ensure that they do in future. As Members know, I spent 30 years in business. What we are proudest of in business is our legacy and our reputation, and it seems to me that our reputation is founded on how we treat not only our customers but the people who work for us. That approach has tremendous recruitment and retention benefits for business.

My hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (James Wild) rightly said that we were here to protect people from various types of mistreatment. That is indeed one of our jobs here in the House. He asked how we could promote these measures so that employers knew about them. We are consulting and working with key stakeholders such as the CBI, the Federation of Small Businesses and the TUC to try to ensure that these changes are as widely known about as possible in the business community. He also asked about regulations, as did the hon. Member for Bradford East. We are making good progress on regulations and officials are working at pace, although I cannot give an actual date for when those regulations will be in place. My hon. Friend will probably understand that we have some key considerations here and we want to ensure that we get things right as we bring them forward.

As I conclude, may I thank the civil servants who have worked fantastically hard on this Bill? They are coping with a huge amount of legislation at the moment, some of which has been brought in very rapidly, for obvious reasons. Let me name them individually: Tony Mulcahy; Jenni Aara; Aoife Egar; Faye Penlington; Bryan Halka; Roxana Bakharia; Jayne McCann; Keisha Parris; and Cora Sweet, from my private office, who is sitting in the Box there.

To conclude, as my predecessors have said to this House before, these measures will provide invaluable support and protection for pregnant women and new parents. A little bit more security during these times in people’s lives is so important. The evidence and analysis of the need to introduce additional protection is absolutely clear. Through the Government and the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s own research, and the work of the Select Committee on Women and Equalities and others, we see that there is clearly a need for further support for parents at these times. The Government are pleased to support this private Member’s Bill, which is wholly in line with our ongoing commitment to support workers and build a high-skilled, high-productivity, high-wage economy. The Government look forward to continuing work with the hon. Member for Barnsley Central and those in the other place to support the passage of these measures.