Protection from Redundancy (Pregnancy and Family Leave) Bill

Jane Hunt Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 21st October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

I begin by acknowledging that the House was originally due consider the Bill on Friday 9 September. I was looking over my speech the day before when I learned, with the greatest sadness, that Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II had passed away. I am grateful that we can proceed with Second Reading today.

I welcome the new Minister to his post. I also thank the previous Ministers—the hon. Member for Loughborough (Jane Hunt), who is in her place, and the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully)—for their support for the Bill at an early stage. They were both incredibly helpful and supportive and I am grateful to them.

I pay tribute to the officials at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy for their excellent work in supporting the Bill. I also say a big “thank you” to the Clerks of the House, who have done excellent work, as they always do, to ensure that we can proceed with Second Reading today. I put on record my sincere gratitude to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the TUC, the Royal College of Midwives, my union Unison, Maternity Action, Pregnant Then Screwed, The Fawcett Society and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, all of which have offered invaluable support to the process over the last few months.

There is no more important or gratifying experience than raising a family. Children provide hope for the future and bring joy to our lives, although I can say as a parent, as I am sure other hon. Members will, that on occasion that has been tested to the full in my household—but that is teenagers. Despite its importance, however, raising a family has never been more challenging. The scarcity of affordable housing, sky-high childcare costs and now soaring inflation make the decision to start or grow a family simply unaffordable for many. This Bill seeks to alleviate some of that hardship by increasing security in the workplace for pregnant women and new parents by extending redundancy protections. I am proud to be bringing forward the Bill in the House today.

The current safeguards afforded under the Equality Act 2010 and the Maternity and Parental Leave etc. Regulations 1999—the MAPLE regulations—are not being applied correctly, and are sometimes not being observed at all. As it stands under the law, a woman on maternity leave is entitled to be offered a suitable alternative vacancy if her role is at risk, but a lack of clarity coupled with poor compliance means that new mums are often first rather than last to be shown the door. The sheer scale of the problem makes the case for reform irrefutable.

Each year, there are somewhere in the region of half a million pregnant women in the workplace. A Human Rights Commission survey, commissioned by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and published in 2016, found that a majority—three in four—experience pregnancy and maternity discrimination, while some 54,000 women a year lose their job just for getting pregnant. A few months on from that survey, the Women and Equalities Committee, then chaired by the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller), advocated for a comprehensive ban on redundancies. In response to her inquiry’s report, the Government stated that the situation was “clearly unacceptable”.

Two years on, the Government launched a consultation, and in reply they pledged to extend existing protections to pregnancy and a period of six months following a return to work. The 2019 Queen’s Speech was set to deliver these commitments through an employment Bill, but that was not brought forward, and then the pandemic hit. As with everything, covid exposed and amplified every pre-existing inequality and prejudice, and expectant and new parents in the workplace were not an exception.

Analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies found that mothers were more likely than fathers to have lost their job or to have quit during lockdown. The Office for National Statistics reported that parents were twice as likely to have been furloughed compared with workers without children. A TUC survey revealed a significant number of pregnant women and new mums had experienced unfair treatment or discrimination at work—findings backed up by two damning reports published by the Petitions Committee.

Behind those numbers are scores of soon-to-be mums and new parents fighting to keep their jobs, struggling to support a young family and now doing so against the backdrop of a cost of living crisis. This debate is therefore not over the level of injustice—we know what that is—but about how we can correct it.

Let me explain to the House what the Bill will do. Clause 1 provides a new power to enable provision to be made by regulations about protection from redundancy during and after pregnancy. Clause 2 amends existing powers to make regulations to enable protection from redundancy on return to work from maternity, adoption or shared parental leave.

[Jane Hunt (Loughborough) (Con)]

The hon. Member is making an excellent speech on his excellent Bill. Yes, this is about pregnant women, but it is also about family leave, which is superb news. Could he elaborate a little more on that, please?

[Dan Jarvis]

I am very grateful to the hon. Member for her question. As I said earlier, she was incredibly helpful at the early stages of the Bill, and she is absolutely right to make that point. The benefit of the Bill will be felt across hundreds of thousands of households and families right across the country. Although the focus of my remarks to date has been on the impact it will have on women who are pregnant and new mums, the reality is that the benefits of the Bill extend right across the family unit. We know the official numbers are that 54,000 women lose their jobs every single year just because they are pregnant. As we can all imagine, that has a devastating impact on them, but also of course on the wider family unit. The hon. Member raises a very important question, and I completely agree with what she said.

I know there are some right hon. and hon. Members here today, and certainly a number of people and campaigners watching the debate, who would like—and this policy was previously advocated by the right hon. Member for Basingstoke—an outright ban on redundancies, as we have seen implemented in Germany. Not everybody will necessarily be familiar with the German model, so let me briefly explain it.

There are five pillars of the Maternity Protection Act that underwrite the ban in Germany. First, protection from redundancy begins the moment the employer knows that the employee is pregnant. Secondly, if an employer makes a pregnant worker redundant not knowing they are pregnant but then this information is disclosed, they must be reinstated and the protections apply. Thirdly, the local health authority must review each request from an employer to make a pregnant worker or a new mother redundant. This usually takes about three weeks in practice, and while this review takes place the pregnant woman will remain in employment. Fourthly, an employer cannot dismiss a pregnant worker or a new mother without permission from the health authority. Lastly, protections for mothers on maternity and parental leave extend to four months after it has been taken. That also extends to women who, very sadly, have experienced a miscarriage.

Although it may not be wholly translatable to the British system, there is little doubt over confusion and compliance under those rules. The Government have decided that, for the moment, they do not want to apply similar regulations here.

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[Tulip Siddiq]

The hon. Member is absolutely right. The cost of living in my constituency of Hampstead and Kilburn is extremely high, and those families were very worried about what would impact them financially. Moreover, parents are meant to enjoy the time after they have a baby, but instead, these four women were fighting court cases and going to their employers. What really shocked me, as I was helping them and supporting them through it, was that it felt like the onus was on the women to prove maternity discrimination, whereas the employer did not seem to have much of an obligation to prove genuine redundancy. That worried me. I felt that there was more and more pressure on new mothers to say, “Actually, this is maternity discrimination. This is what happened when I left, and then when I came back, my job wasn’t there. You are not offering me another job.” That is why I feel so passionate about this Bill. If it shifts the onus on to employers to prove that they are not indulging in maternity discrimination, that would be a huge win for the country.

I wish to mention briefly the godmother of my children. She had a child and took only four months off—she had shared parental leave because she loved her job so much. Four days after going back to work, she was told that she was fired. Members of this House sit on the board of the organisation in which she worked. I went with the godmother of my child to her hearing. I felt frustrated that I could not stand up for her and prove maternity discrimination, because I did not have the law on my side. I felt like I failed her. The case was swept under the carpet. When I spoke to her later, she told me that when she eventually found a new job, she discovered that she was pregnant with her second child—this goes back to the point made by the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster. She said that her first feeling when she found out was “total panic”—those were the words she used. She thought, “What’s going to happen? Am I going to be fired again? Should I tell my employer that I am having another child?” She said that she was so traumatised by what had gone before—dealing with lawyers, having to go back to her employer and fighting with her friends in the workplace—that she would not even take a lunch break in her new job, because she felt like they might discriminate against her when she told them she was pregnant.

[Jane Hunt]

Does the hon. Member agree that it is so short-sighted of that business to have done that? These women are hard-working, and they will be on maternity leave for a short period in comparison with the rest of their career. That business will lose skills and knowledge because of what happened.

[Tulip Siddiq]

I thank the hon. Member for her point. I do not just say this because she is the godmother to my children, but I have never met someone as hard-working and dedicated to her job as Anne. Her employer fired her mostly because she had taken the time off—they essentially penalised her for having a child—and that is why I am so passionate about the Bill. Penalising women for having children is not what our country should be focused on.

I will not speak for much longer, because I know there is a lot of interest in the Bill, but I want to touch briefly on covid. As my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central said, covid exacerbated every inequality. The TUC brought out a report about what had happened to expectant mothers and pregnant women during the covid pandemic, which found that 25% of new mothers and pregnant women said they had faced some sort of discrimination during covid, whether that was being made redundant, being forced to go on furlough or being told they should take sick leave because they were pregnant. Being pregnant does not mean someone is ill, but these women were being forced to take sick leave.

That report from the TUC is really important, as is all the analysis that has been done by Pregnant Then Screwed, which shows how we as a country have failed new mothers and pregnant women. By passing this legislation, we are signalling to the employers that we will not put up with this any more and that things have to change. In a situation where there is soaring inflation, childcare costs are rocketing and there is a cost of living crisis, we owe it as a House to new mothers to give them job security.

[Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the powerful speech by the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq), who gave examples of lived experiences. The experience she highlighted of her children’s godmother is horrendous. These experiences are brushed under the carpet, and that is disgraceful. I hope that, through the Bill, we will ensure that that does not happen again, because it cannot. I commend the hon. and gallant Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) for bringing in the Bill. It should not be necessary to do so, but clearly it is. We have to do this, and it is the right thing to do. What has struck me today is the way in which we have come together as a House to support the Bill and its aims.

The background to this area astonishes me, and we have heard about it in contributions from Members across the House. In 2022, it should not be an impediment to someone to want to have a family, so that they cannot at the same time pursue a career—that is crazy. The hon. and gallant Member for Barnsley Central touched on the report of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and some of the figures in that were horrendous. When scaled up, the figures show that something like 54,000 women could experience discrimination as a result of either being pregnant or having had children. That astounds me.

[Jane Hunt]

I absolutely agree with what my hon. Friend is saying. We see headlines these days about the lack of labour in the market and needing people to fill jobs, yet 54,000 people are either being made redundant or feeling the need to leave their jobs. That is a disgrace, is it not?

[Shaun Bailey]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: it is a disgrace. I think about my own experiences. Before I entered this place, I was a lawyer; that is what I trained to do. I was fortunate to work in some great firms and meet some fantastic, intelligent people. I know that people sometimes typecast lawyers as all sorts and do not trust us, but the people I worked with were fantastic, intelligent, hard-working and inspirational. However, let us look at the figures in the sector, and I am thinking in particular about the gender pay gap and how the issues we are debating contribute to that.

A London School of Economics study found that even though today 62% of new entrants into law firms are women, by the time we get to partner level only 28% of women are partners. That is absolutely crazy, given the proportion of women at entry level. What we are seeing is that women want to go and have a family and a personal life, which we are all entitled to, but they are being impeded. That might not all be down to the discrimination we have been talking about, but what I hope the Bill achieves is a cultural change. That is what we have to drive forward. It amazes me that we actually have to say this today, but a woman can have a career and a family at the same time, and an employer that enables that to happen.

Thinking of my own office, 80% of my staff are women. I have no problem if they need to take time out because they have to go and look after their family or collect their kids. To me, that is just basic decency as an employer. Surely it is a two-way street as an employer: what we do is get the talent and ability of the people we employ, and in turn we give something back.

[Jane Hunt]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this Bill is very helpful because it also includes shared parental leave? Those partners, both male and female, who are impacted by shared parental leave will also be able to take advantage of the redundancy scheme.

[Shaun Bailey]

My hon. Friend articulates it so well. She is absolutely right; shared parental leave is now such a key part of the broader landscape of family and employment rights—I do not want to just say maternity rights. We now know that the idea that mum goes off for a year and looks after the baby while dad works is ridiculous—it is rubbish. Both parents need to be playing an active role. We say that both parents need to be playing an active role in the life of their child, but if we have an employment structure that does not allow us to do that, then it is all good words but absolutely no action. My hon. Friend is right to draw out with her intervention the point about shared parental leave. What I am encouraged by is the recognition that shared parental leave needs to become the norm. From what I have seen at the moment, we are seeing that transition; we are seeing that more organisations are getting that. But there is still more to do.

The other point I will touch on is the societal impact. I talk about this from my personal experience. What we do not want to do is frame this in the context of mum, dad and 2.4 children, because actually families do not operate like that; there are many shades of grey. If someone is a single mother, or a single woman who is pregnant, and runs the risk of redundancy as a result of that, where does that leave them?

[Shaun Bailey]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and the academic studies have shown that. We have the data showing the mental health impact on women who are having to worry about the risk of redundancy in their job. Of course it is not right—I am framing this in the context of a mother who is giving care to a child—that they should have to worry about their employment and everything that interconnects with that, and at the same time have to raise a child.

I have not had children, but for those who have—I am probably going to get interventions from hon. Friends across the House now—that initial period of time, and I will not say how long it is because I am sure it might vary, is probably one of the most stressful points in a mother’s life. They are getting to grips with realising that there is no handbook, and that everything they were told was going to go this way or that way actually does not—children do not work like that and there is no button to push. They are balancing that—a new person they have brought into the world and have to care for—and at the same time having to worry about how they are going to put food on the table, and go back into a career that they love, are passionate about and have maybe trained for years to do but now are at risk of losing because their organisation has potentially decided, “No, goodbye, see you later.” It seriously blows my mind that we even have to be here having this conversation.

[Jane Hunt]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the six-month window at the end of this part of the Bill is also very important? I hate to use this phrase, but it is almost an “out of sight, out of mind” situation. When a woman is on maternity leave or a person is on shared parental leave, they are no longer in the workplace. They need that window of opportunity to get back into the workplace and into the swing of things, so they can show their value to the business.

[Shaun Bailey]

My hon. Friend raises a good point, and I was hoping to touch on the transitional period later. We know how important it is to have the opportunity to transition back into the workplace and get back into the flow of things. Going through a life-changing event such as having a child changes the whole dynamic in someone’s life. I think that window is a really important opportunity for them. I hope I have not misunderstood my hon. Friend, but I agree that having that period of time means the individual is able to contribute in the way they know they can.

It all comes back to realising people’s potential. That is another part of this issue. It is not about saying to someone, “Okay, you’ve had a child; you’re done.” It is not like that at all. I have been very fortunate in the organisations I have worked in, out in what we call the real world—certainly more real at times than this place has been, particularly over the last week. I have seen organisations that get this issue, already have processes in place and are developing a culture that understands that it is not just about, for instance, the amount someone bills every month, but the contribution they make as a person.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Jane Hunt) just described, the provision for that period of time is a crucial part of this legislation. We are on Second Reading today, but the Bill represents part of a broader landscape, and what my hon. Friend is saying on its provisions is vital. It comes back to a point that right hon. and hon. Members across the House have raised—including the hon. and gallant Member for Barnsley Central, my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough, and a few hon. Members from a sedentary position—which is that we are currently losing skillsets from the workforce as a result of this issue. How daunting must it be for someone who has taken an extended period of time to go and have a child to come back and worry about not having the protections they should be afforded?

[Shaun Bailey]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Why would someone want to join such an organisation, having seen how it operates and what its practices are? Talented individuals who know they have something to bring to the table, and know their worth, particularly in the climate we are in, are going to vote with their feet, are they not? And they should. They will be empowered to know that they can now go to organisations that will treat them as individuals who deserve respect. These organisations will understand that people are allowed to have a family life and balance. People should be able to have an employer who contributes toward that balance and is part of a partnership with them.

As I understand it, the whole point of the employer-employee relationship is that it is a contract and partnership—an understanding between two people in an organisation. The balance of power has at times gone completely off.

[Jane Hunt]

My hon. Friend is being generous with his time; I promise that this is my last intervention. Just to balance it out, he is absolutely right in what he just said, but this Bill is absolutely brilliant in bringing up one segment of the business sector. Many businesses already meet these and further requirements, but we need everybody to do the same, because that 54,000 figure should not exist.

[Shaun Bailey]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. To reiterate her point, I certainly do not want to give the impression that I am typecasting every business in that regard. As I have said, many businesses are getting this right and are going above and beyond—but that should not be above and beyond; it should be the standard.

I return to the idea that not every family is black and white, with 2.4 children and a mum and dad—I apologise to hon. Members for segueing away from that point. I speak as someone who was brought up in a single-parent family with a sole breadwinner who at times was working three jobs in order to put food on the table, and doing a part-time university degree. My mum went back to work six weeks after she had me, because she needed to, and it was similar with my sister. If someone is a sole parent on their own income and is pregnant with another child, or if there has been a family breakdown, the last thing they need is to have that threat of, “If I have a child, or if there’s anything connected to that child, I’m going to lose my job.” It does not bear thinking about—it blows my mind.

The societal impact of what we are talking about goes much further than the scope of the Bill’s provisions, and that is why it is so important. When we pass legislation in this House, particularly legislation such as this, it is not just about the Bill or the laws that we implement; it is about the message we send about society. We have seen that throughout history, particularly with legislation that has passed as a result of private Members’ Bills, such as women’s rights legislation. Lord Steel was a big advocate of women’s rights and the work of those organisations when he was on the Liberal Benches. We are sending a broader message that we need a society that understands that balancing work and family life is key.

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[Jane Hunt (Loughborough) (Con)]

Gosh—follow that! That was extremely moving from my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West (Shaun Bailey). I am grateful to him for his articulation of his experience, which was superb.

I very much thank the hon. and gallant Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) for introducing this important Bill, which will ensure better protections for women and families with new babies. It was a pleasure to work with him, albeit briefly, to help drive this Bill forward in my former role as the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, and I would like to emphasise my continued full support for it.

The hon. Member talked about being proud of this Bill, and I feel sure he is quite right to be so. I certainly feel proud to have been involved. The current Minister has done a huge amount of work to support it, as indeed did the previous Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully). He did a great deal of work on this, and also on many other Bills, which I will refer to a bit later. What we are looking at in the Bill is part of a matrix of workers’ rights, and it is right, good and proper that we are doing so.

It is shocking that, in 2022, new parents—mothers in particular—are still being forced out of their jobs through either dismissal or compulsory redundancy when others in the workplace do not face that, or are being treated so poorly that they feel they have no choice but to leave. A 2020 survey by Pregnant Then Screwed found that 11.2% of women on maternity leave had been made redundant, or expected to be made redundant, and 60.7% of them believed that their maternity leave was a factor in the decision. A more recent 2021 survey found that 20% of mothers have experienced discrimination from an employer.

I turn to the background to the Bill. Research published in 2016 commissioned by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Equality and Human Rights Commission found that about one in nine mothers—11%—reported that they were either dismissed, made redundant or treated poorly and therefore had to leave their job. The publication of that research was followed by a Women and Equalities Committee inquiry and report on pregnancy and maternity discrimination in August 2016. One of its key findings was that mothers returning from maternity leave still faced discrimination. It therefore recommended that the Government should take steps to provide

“additional protection from redundancy for new and expectant mothers”.

It recommended that enhanced protections should apply throughout pregnancy and for six months after a woman’s return to work.

The Government published their response to the report in 2017. They acknowledged the scale of pregnancy and maternity discrimination experienced by new and expectant mothers and committed to

“consider further and bring forward proposals to ensure that the protections in place for those who are pregnant or returning from maternity leave are sufficient.”

The Committee said:

“We are persuaded that additional protection from redundancy for new and expectant mothers is required. The Government should implement a system similar to that used in Germany—

that was referred to earlier—

“under which such women can be made redundant only in specified circumstances. This protection should apply throughout pregnancy and maternity leave and for six months afterwards. The Government should implement this change within the next two years.”

In January 2019, the Government published a consultation seeking views on extending current redundancy protections for pregnant women and new parents. It recommended that the Government extend the current redundancy protection afforded to women during maternity leave under the Maternity and Paternity Leave etc. Regulations 1999 to cover a woman’s pregnancy and a period of up to six months after returning to work. The consultation also acknowledged that those returning from forms of leave comparable to maternity leave may have been away from work for long periods and therefore might similarly face discrimination or be prone to less favourable treatment.

The Government response, published in July 2019, made two commitments: to extend the redundancy protection period to include pregnancy and six months after a new mother has returned to work; and to provide the same enhanced protections to those returning from adoption leave and, crucially, shared parental leave.

It is unacceptable that anyone should be penalised for deciding to have a family. I welcome the fact that the Government have acknowledged the scale of pregnancy and maternity discrimination experienced by new and expectant mothers. Given the scale of the problem, it is clear that current legislation does not go far enough to protect new parents. We have talked about that in earlier speeches and interventions. The Bill caters for pregnant women working in all types of employment. There are women throughout the whole of the workplace, and all such people will benefit from the Bill.

I am particularly grateful that the Bill covers those on adoption leave and shared parental leave. The Bill dovetails wonderfully with the Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Bill introduced in July by the Scottish National party hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald), working closely with the Government and BEIS, as well as with the Fertility Treatment (Employment Rights) Bill from my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken), which has yet to have its Second Reading, and the shared parental leave Bill that we have discussed. There is a matrix being formed of support and business guidance to ensure that businesses are helped to do the right thing to support their employees, women and parents. There should be no barrier to any parent having the opportunity to get to know their child and bond with them at the earliest opportunity.

I welcome the fact that in 2019 the Government consulted on the proposals to extend redundancy protections for pregnant women and new parents. The majority of responses showed support for measures to extend the redundancy protection period once a new mother had returned to work, and to extend protections to adoption and shared parental leave. That consultation was undertaken in January 2019 and BEIS reported

“that 6 months would be an adequate period of ‘return to work’ for redundancy protection purposes”,

and

“that protection should be extended to parents who have taken adoption leave and shared parental leave”,

which I think is crucial.

The Government responded to the consultation on 22 July 2019, including a series of commitments to increasing redundancy protections in this area, first to

“ensure the redundancy protection period applies from the point the employee informs the employer that she is pregnant, whether orally or in writing;”

secondly, to

“extend the redundancy protection period for six months once a new mother has returned to work. We expect that this period will start immediately once maternity leave is finished;”

thirdly, to

“extend redundancy protection into a period of return to work for those taking adoption leave following the same approach as the extended protection being provided for those returning from maternity leave—it will be for six months;”,

and fourthly, to

“extend redundancy protection into a period of return to work for those taking shared parental leave, taking account of the following key principles and issues: the key objective of this policy is to help protect pregnant women and new mothers from discrimination; the practical and legal differences between shared parental leave and maternity leave mean that it will require a different approach; the period of extended protection should be proportionate to the amount of leave and the threat of discrimination; a mother should be no worse off if she curtails her maternity leave and then takes a period of Shared Parental Leave; the solution should not create any disincentives to take Shared Parental Leave”.

The Bill before us would enact those crucial changes and clearly has the backing of many. I recognise the cross-party agreement we have seen across the House; in my opinion, we are at our best when we have that. The Bill is a welcome extension of the framework of workers’ rights in general and crucially allows family leave to be included in legislation. The German model is a good one, but I believe we must reach a compromise between the needs of businesses and the needs of families and pregnant mothers.

[Shaun Bailey]

Looking at other models and the broader matrix my hon. Friend talks about, does she also believe that the legislative framework we are trying to bring in needs to be an evolving one? The likelihood is that we will need secondary legislation or even further primary legislation, but as part of that we must ensure that the framework continues to evolve and adapt as the workplace landscape changes.

[Jane Hunt]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. This Bill provides a framework that the Secretary of State can adapt to meet future needs for both pregnant women and those on adoption or shared parental leave. It sets up a matrix that can be filled as required.

In conclusion, I welcome this Bill. I truly believe it is something we should do and are able to do. I feel that the Minister will do a wonderful job in bringing this all together and I wholeheartedly thank the hon. Member for Barnsley Central for bringing the Bill forward.