Protection from Redundancy (Pregnancy and Family Leave) Bill

Bob Stewart Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 21st October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dan Jarvis]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady. She makes a helpful contribution. As she and other right hon. and hon. Members will understand, including the right hon. Member for Basingstoke, there are different views about this matter. In the end we have arrived at a reasonable and sensible compromise. The debate on that particular issue will continue, and if the Bill is successful there will be a further opportunity to debate such matters in Committee.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I thank the hon. and gallant Gentleman for giving way. I have never heard of the German proposals before, and I really like them. I think they are flipping good, if I can say that, and it makes sense that we go some of the way down that road.

[Dan Jarvis]

I am grateful to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman for his intervention. I had not expected us to get into a debate today about what is going on in Germany, but he raises a valuable point. It is always important to look at how things work in different countries. The German model has been looked at closely, and a number of campaign organisations are strongly supportive of it. I have had those conversations with Ministers and a range of organisations, and there is merit in the German model, which, for the record, is my preference. I understand, however, the concerns that have been raised, and I think the Bill has currently got to the right place. I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s support today.

We are now six years on from the shocking findings by the Equality and Human Rights Commission about the industrial scale discrimination that expectant and new mums face at work. This is a timely opportunity to make progress. I confess that I was taken aback by the level of discrimination faced by pregnant women in the workplace. Perhaps I had made an assumption that such practices had been consigned to history, but that is not the case, and as I said, 54,000 women are directly affected as a consequence, with the wider impact that will have on their families.

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[Dan Jarvis]

I think all of us can completely agree that that is not the kind of society in which we want to live. We should value people who do the right thing and step forward to enter the workplace. Collectively, we all have a responsibility to put in place legislation that will provide protections to ensure that people are not treated in that way.

To go back to the hon. Member’s previous point, there is a big responsibility on business. In my experience, the overwhelming majority of the business community are sensible, decent employers. They want to do the right thing. As he said, it is in their interest to do the right thing, value their staff and invest in their workforce—not least a cohort of the workforce that, in every respect, are effective and efficient, to go back to the point about productivity. We have an opportunity to take a step forward today. As I said, this is not a panacea. There is a debate about whether we should go further and be more ambitious, but this is a good step in the right direction and I very much hope that we take it.

[Bob Stewart]

I thank the hon. Gentleman—my friend—for giving way. It seems to me that in the Bill Committee, we could put in a clause that makes it incumbent on employers to give a sheet of paper to women who are packing up their job because they are pregnant stating what their rights are. That might already be in the Bill—I do not know—but it seems to make sense and that would make it clear to women leaving their jobs exactly what their rights are.

[Dan Jarvis]

That is an excellent suggestion. The right hon. Member mentioned the Bill Committee. If the Bill is successful in its passage today, we will look for Members to sit on the Committee. I have a form here that I can perhaps give to him—I would be incredibly grateful. He will remember the expression, “Never volunteer for anything,” even better than I do, but in good faith he may have just volunteered to serve on the Bill Committee. Fingers crossed and touch wood, if we get to that point I will be knocking on his door with the form.

I was making the point about employment tribunals and about Natasha. When she finally felt able to take her employer to a tribunal, she was told—[Interruption.] That is the office of the right hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) calling to make sure they have the date of the Bill Committee in his diary—[Laughter.] Natasha was told that it was too late and that she should have applied within the three-month window. Extending the time limit to bring forward a claim to six months was supported by every single stakeholder I engaged with. That is an important point.

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[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I am surprised to be called so early; it is unusual. I am slightly off piste, to be honest, but willingly so because this issue is so important.

Every single person on this planet is equal, but it is clear, from what we have heard and what we know, that in work women are not as equal as men. That is wrong. A woman who takes time off work because she is having a baby will take a minimum of six, nine or 12 months, perhaps longer. It is incredibly important that she does that—we all know that. Women do a huge duty to society. I do not consider women to be equal to men—please, do not just quote that but listen to the second half—I think that women are at a higher level than men. I know they will cut what I say, but it is absolutely true. Without what they do, we would have no future. We should recognise that, and so should employers.

[Lee Anderson]

Does my right hon. Friend also agree that men play an important role in the future of mankind?

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[Bob Stewart]

I knew I would get that sort of response from my hon. Friend. He is right that we momentarily play a part. My goodness, am I going to be in real trouble? I hope not, because I am totally on the side of women.

This is a really good Bill, and I would like it to go further. The Government support it, so as a big, loyal follower of the Government, I support it, too. It is right. This is a good Bill because it fundamentally improves protection from redundancy for pregnant women and other people with family reasons for not working. It is simply unfair for women to be sacked or to suffer because they have been away from their job to have a baby. It is just plain wrong.

I love the idea that this Bill extends beyond the period when leave has been taken. I recall that the 2019 Queen’s Speech said we would extend protections against maternity discrimination. It has taken three years, but I am sure it will now happen. I have not heard anyone suggest otherwise. The Bill will pass Second Reading and go into Committee. Yes, I will sit on the Committee, but I ask my friend, the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis), to make sure it is short, because I have little concentration. I call the hon. Gentleman my friend because we were in the military together. We are apparently not allowed to be friends in this place, but we are.

The Bill will apply to everybody on maternity leave, shared parental leave and adoption leave. There is good evidence, as has been explained, that the Bill is absolutely necessary. In 2015, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills found that one in 10 women—10%—had been fired or treated badly in the workplace, resulting in them giving up their job. This is wrong.

Since 2015, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the Women and Equalities Committee and campaign groups such as Pregnant Then Screwed—I was a bit worried when I read that for the first time, and I wondered whether somebody had made a spello, but it is accurate and I now understand what it means—have investigated new mothers facing redundancy. The EHRC found that some 54,000 new mothers may be forced out of their job in Britain each year. That is appalling. It is so wrong. A survey of new mothers by Pregnant Then Screwed—I am worried about saying such words, but that is the name—found that 30% believed they had experienced discrimination from their employer during the pandemic.

[Lee Anderson]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Bob Stewart]

Of course I give way. I am about the be castigated again.

[Lee Anderson]

My right hon. Friend is giving a masterful and interesting speech. Does he agree that, although this discrimination is abhorrent, it also happens before pregnancy and, sometimes, during the recruitment process? Employers will look unfavourably on women of a certain age for fear that they may fall pregnant and cost them in the short term. As I said before, that is a very narrow-minded view and these ladies can probably offer more in the workplace than some of us men.

[Bob Stewart]

I thank my hon. Friend for saying that, and I totally agree. I have already explained that I believe women are at a higher level than men, so they do everything much better. They can certainly multitask, I gather. I certainly cannot. I am not trying to be too flippant, because this is a serious matter.

I gather recent research has found that 15% of pregnant ladies in ethnic minorities experience even more discrimination, which is utterly wrong. The figure for lesbian and bisexual women is 15% as well. This is fundamentally wrong, and we must correct it: that is what we are here to do. A great many Conservative colleagues are here to support you—I mean the hon. Member for Barnsley Central. I would have been castigated for that, wouldn’t I, Mr Deputy Speaker? A few minutes ago you were wearing a dress, Mr Deputy Speaker! [Laughter.] Congratulations! This is woke him/her, is it? Oh my goodness, I’ve really had it now.

Well done the Women and Equalities Committee for further investigation into these findings. A good friend of mine suggested that I might sit on the Committee one day, although I am not sure whether people would want that to happen. In its report, the Committee recommended that enhanced protections should be introduced applying not just throughout pregnancy but, importantly, for six months thereafter.

It is often difficult enough for women to take all their parental responsibilities seriously. Let me clarify that: they do take these matters seriously, but it is difficult for them to achieve everything they want to achieve when they also have to work. Childcare costs are enormous. How many times have all of us sat in our constituency surgeries and heard women say, “I want to go out to work, but all I am doing when I am working is covering my childcare costs”? I am afraid we have a problem with the cost of childcare costs as well, but that, I suspect, is a subject for another debate. It is hardly easy for a woman anyway, looking after children and getting them to school, often as a single parent, and then trying to work as well. Balancing all that is pretty awkward. We in the House therefore have a duty to make it as easy as possible for women to balance their civic duty of bringing children up with working. I do not mean that they have to work, of course.

Let me now turn to the Bill’s two clauses. As we heard from the hon. Member for Barnsley Central—my hon. Friend—the first extends the Secretary of State’s existing powers so that additional protection can more easily be applied to an individual who has taken pregnancy leave, and the second seeks to improve the protections. Both those clauses make sense. The Bill makes sense. The Bill is why we are here. It is a very important Bill, and we have to get it through. I fully support it.

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[Bob Stewart]

My hon. Friend may not have had children yet; I have had six. One point that has not been talked about today is that when a woman is pregnant, it is often traumatic and frightening for her. It is often not an easy time. Some people may find it joyous—it is joyous, of course—but it is difficult for some women. If we put that on top of the fact that they might lose their jobs, it is just another pressure. I make that point because it is valid.

[Shaun Bailey]

I thank my right hon. and gallant Friend for that powerful intervention, to which I cannot add any more. He is right that it can be a traumatic experience. The Bill also seeks to address when someone has a miscarriage or loses a baby, which is a horrific time in the lives of both parents. It is important to consider how we support someone who has gone through that, particularly a woman, who feels that loss acutely and painfully. Unless someone has gone through that experience, I do not think that they can truly understand the pain that is felt as a result.

Again, talking about what this Bill does, its broader messages and what it seeks to achieve in supporting people at the most vulnerable points in their lives is absolutely key. Surely it is incumbent on all of us in this House to support people when they most need it and at the times in their lives when they are most vulnerable, particularly during pregnancy. That is the point in their life when a person is most exposed to both physical and mental challenges, as well as in other ways.

I am conscious that I should conclude my comments, but I really want to say that I am so proud to be able to support this Bill. I really do commend the hon. and gallant Member for Barnsley Central for the work he has done on it. What this Bill seeks to do, as was articulated so brilliantly by my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough, is to set what is currently seen as the exceptional standard as the norm, and that is right because it is what we should be doing.

The Bill will ensure that we do not lose brilliant people from our workforce. We should enable everyone who has the passion and drive and who wants to contribute to do so. We should back up the mantra we have been churning out from this House for decades about how we want to encourage the family base and encourage people to have families. Families are the core of society, and we should follow that up with tangible action. This place is very good at talking, but we need to follow through with tangible legislation. We must have the tangible means by which we can follow up on our good sentiments, and that is one thing this Bill does.

The Bill also ensures that in situations a bit like my mum’s and other people’s, when single mums are trying to get on with life and secure a life for their kids, whether or not they have been born, they can do so without worrying about how they are going to do it. They, too, can contribute, because this is surely about lifting people up, is it not? If they fear that they are going to lose their job or that they cannot progress up the ladder because they have had a child, that just should not be happening.

Finally, the Bill will ensure that, at what for many is the most exciting time of their lives, but also a time when they are at their most vulnerable and most exposed, people get the support that we should rightly be giving them. I fully endorse the aims of the Bill, and if the hon. Member for Barnsley Central is looking for someone to serve on his Bill Committee, I would be honoured to do so, because this is absolutely one of the reasons why I came into this place. [Interruption.] I can see he is already putting my name down—brilliant—so I expect the email in due course.

I just think back to the reason why I came into the place. I always say, whenever I am asked, that it is for people like my mum. With this Bill today, I think of her and what she went through as a single mum bringing me up and enabling me to get here. I will always owe her for that, because I would not be here had she not made the sacrifices that she had to make to get me—a lad from a council house who was told he probably would not amount to anything—to be a Member of Parliament. If we can ensure we get a few more young people like me from such backgrounds into this place by agreeing to the provisions of this Bill today, as far as I am concerned that is exactly why we are all here.

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[Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

I wholeheartedly welcome this Bill, and I feel privileged to speak in this debate and support the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis). I am proud that there are a number of hon. Members on this side of the House who—they may not accept it—are feminists, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart). It is important to recognise that this should not be about women’s rights; this is about wanting to ensure that our country supports all its employees, male or female. It is sad that in the 21st century we still have to introduce Bills such as this to give women protection in the workplace.

The Bill provides long overdue guarantees to pregnant women that they will not be dismissed during or shortly after pregnancy. It is also important to remember—we have not yet touched on this—that the Bill contains protection for those adopting children. A number of my gay friends have adopted children over recent years, and they will welcome this progressive Bill. This is not just about women, it is also about gay couples who are involved in adoption or a pregnancy, and it is important to highlight that—[Interruption.] I thank my right hon. Friend. Perhaps he would like to intervene.

[Bob Stewart]

I was just pointing out that a lot of my friends, male and female and married, also want to adopt. They have that right too, which is great.

[Nickie Aiken]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. This is about adoption, whether by a gay or heterosexual couple. The hon. Member for Barnsley Central is right to say that women should not have to choose between a career and raising a family, but unfortunately, far too many women are forced to make that choice. In 2016, a survey commissioned by BEIS found that three in four women experienced some form of pregnancy or maternity discrimination. As we have heard, 54,000 pregnant women a year are dismissed from their jobs. That eye-watering statistic should shame this country, and I hope that if passed, the Bill will go towards rectifying that shameful record. It is wholly unacceptable, but nevertheless we see that story across the board.

In my constituency I hear the same stories again and again from women who are trying to balance family planning with their career. As I said in an earlier intervention, I am sponsoring my own private Member’s Bill to secure employment rights for those undertaking fertility treatment. That Bill seeks similar outcomes to those sought by the hon. Member for Barnsley Central. After all, this is 2022 not 1922, and people need to feel comfortable to choose to have a child—or more than one child—whether that child is conceived naturally or through fertility treatment, and no matter where they work and without fear of their career being negatively impacted.

That fear is all too familiar for women across the country. There are women who are trying to make a career, but who are conscious that they have a limited time in which they can have a child. As I said earlier, when I had my first child aged 35, the average age of the woman in the hospital I was in was 39. Women now have careers and want to establish themselves in their 20s and into their 30s, and they then try to have a child.

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[Lee Anderson]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. It is not right; men do not face these questions and this discrimination, and we forget that. It is, unfortunately, still a man’s world. I sometimes get slated for saying that, but it is—let us be honest. There are so many barriers for women in the workplace, in life and in general, and this is just another barrier that they have to come up against time and again. It is quite shocking that we are having this conversation in 2022, but we are here having it, and hopefully the Bill will be passed—I am sure it will—and will give the extra protection that women in this country need.

I just hope that there are plenty of women listening to this today who will know that we are on their side and are going to make changes, and can have that confidence. We have talked about women being sacked from the workplace because they are pregnant or may get pregnant, and the skilled workforce that employers lose through that. They are not only losing skilled workers and their potential to go on to be brilliant employees, but saying to the marketplace out there, “We don’t want you. You’re a woman, and we don’t want you working here.” How wrong is that, when 50% of the population in this country are women? I think we are getting close to that in this place—we are getting more and more women here—and rightly so. Why should women not work here and why should they not do all the top jobs? It is an absolute disgrace.

The most important job that women do on this earth is to have children. Without them, I would not be here. They have children and they do a fantastic job, but to balance that with having a career, running a home, being married or having a partner, or whatever they have to multitask. My right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) said he is not very good at multitasking—I can vouch for that because I have been in his office quite a few times this week, and he cannot multitask at all. Women play an incredibly important part in society.

[Bob Stewart]

I had to intervene on my very good friend, but I must say that I think I am seriously lucky to be a man. Frankly, I do not have to put up with all the rubbish that women sometimes have to go through, so I am very glad, and I think my hon. Friend would probably say the same, would he not?

[Lee Anderson]

I completely agree with my right hon. and gallant Friend, who makes a really good point.

We know this happens: the majority of single parents in this country are ladies—women—and the hurdles they have to go over on a daily basis just to get by in life are hard enough. As a Government and as a society, we are trying to get more people back into the workplace. We have a skills shortage and there are lots of jobs in the economy—there are over 1 million vacancies, and we need to plug that gap—but what are we doing in such situations? We are putting up obstacles and barriers, as we sometimes do to disabled people, and making it so difficult for them to get back into the workplace.

We are missing a trick, and it is costing the economy. It is also costing employers, because if they are not recruiting or keeping in the workplace a lady who has had children or is on maternity leave, they are missing a trick. They are not upskilling that person, and if they are not retaining that person, they have to go out and recruit somebody else and spend thousands and thousands of pounds getting them up to speed when that asset—that employee—is already there. We need to stop missing that trick, use a little bit more common sense in the workplace, get behind our brilliant women in the UK, because they are brilliant, and give them all the support they need.