Protection from Redundancy (Pregnancy and Family Leave) Bill

Imran Hussain Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 3rd February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

I know that this Bill has the strong support of Members right across the House. We have heard excellent speeches today from the hon. Members for Orpington (Gareth Bacon), for Guildford (Angela Richardson), for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Mohindra) and for North West Norfolk (James Wild). I know that we are all keen to wrap up proceedings in this House and send this important Bill to the other place, so I will not go into detail on the contributions that have been made, but the central theme that has run through the debate is that this is a very important Bill that rightly enjoys the support of Members across the House. This House is at its best when we come together on such important matters.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) said, and as I set out on Second Reading, this Bill is long overdue. Eight years ago, the Equality and Human Rights Commission found that 54,000 new mothers were forced out of their jobs because of either compulsory redundancy or workplace conditions that were so unwelcoming or so unsupportive that they had no choice but to leave. The House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee found, following the EHRC’s report, that the discrimination and poor treatment that pregnant women and new mothers face was worse than it was a decade ago. That is disgraceful, and it falls far below the standards we should expect in this country. The hon. Member for Orpington was right to say that in 2023 that should shame everybody. We should be going forwards, not backwards, strengthening the rights and protections afforded to working people, not letting them erode. I am pleased that the Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central goes some way towards addressing the issue. The Government have done the right thing by joining the Opposition in supporting the Bill on its legislative journey.

Let me make two brief points, which my hon. Friend mentioned. Although I think we can all agree that the Bill should enjoy the support of the House, it is very much an enabling Bill and further regulations from the Minister are required. I am hopeful that the Minister will set out some timescales and further particulars for those regulations. The other matter, although it does not fall within the scope of the Bill, is the six-week rule that my hon. Friend quite rightly mentioned, which is very important. The tragedy is that that rule will exclude groups of people that it should not exclude. I do not believe for one minute that that is the aim of the Bill, and I think the whole House would agree that the matter needs clarification from the Minister and urgent attention.

Although I welcome my hon. Friend’s Bill and although it has the full support of those on the Labour Front Bench and the rest of the Labour party, it should not have fallen to Back Benchers to introduce such legislation. The legislation should have been introduced by the Government, not through a private Member’s Bill, as part of a comprehensive expansion of employment rights and protection. We would have liked to have seen the measures in the Bill introduced as part of the Government’s much-promised but still to be delivered employment Bill. A general election is not expected for a little while yet—the Minister is preoccupied, but I am sure he agrees with that statement; I suspect that Government Members hope that that is the case—so there is still time for the Government to introduce such a Bill.

If the Conservatives will not introduce that legislation, the next Labour Government will do so: a comprehensive new deal for working people delivered within our first 100 days in office. It will not only extend statutory maternity and paternity leave to give new parents stronger protections, but tackle workplace sexual harassment, create a single enforcement body to uphold the existing rights of working people and working parents, introduce ethnicity pay gap monitoring so that we can tackle the issue of those from an ethnic minority background being paid less, and repeal the draconian Trade Union Act 2016, to empower working people to fight for a better deal, as well as the scandalous Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill, which will see Ministers sack key workers for standing up to protect their jobs, pay and rights at work. As the party that has pioneered protections for women in legislation by introducing the Equal Pay Act 1970, the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, the Equality Act 2010, the minimum wage and Sure Start, protecting working parents will always be a priority for Labour. We support this important Bill and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central on the work that he has done in bringing it to the House and guiding it every step of the way.