Oral Answers to Questions

Maria Miller Excerpts

Thursday 23rd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Anne Milton]

It is not just the civil service; we are looking at allied health professionals, civil servants and social workers. The social work programmes are in London, the west midlands, and the east of England. The hon. Gentleman makes an important point: encouraging women to get back into the workplace is critical, and employers should be aware that there are very clear laws about what they can and cannot do when their employees take time off work for maternity leave.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

As the hon. Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) said, despite some of the best laws in the world, women in this country who are in work face more discrimination when they are pregnant than they did 10 years ago, and that can also stop them getting back into work. Will the Government consider making it clearer that employment tribunals have discretion in allowing individuals to bring discrimination cases in special circumstances outside the general three-month limit? Surely pregnancy must be a very special circumstance indeed.

[Anne Milton]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right—pregnancy is a very special circumstance, and women and employers are not always aware of their legal obligations. Some of the work that we are doing on gender pay gap reporting will be an important part of that, because it will highlight some of those issues and enable us to dig deeper into the reasons behind that pay gap. I have no doubt that some of it will be due to discrimination against women in the workplace.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Gibb]

The roles and responsibilities given to board members of the Equality and Human Rights Commission are matters for the commission itself, and the Government have no power to reinstate the EHRC’s Disability Commissioner role.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Far be it from me to deny the Chair of the Women and Equalities Select Committee of the House the final question of this session. I call Mrs Maria Miller.

[Mrs Miller]

Parliament and the Leader of the House are tackling the difficult issue of sexual harassment in this place, and that is to be applauded, but 50% of women in the workplace in general suffer sexual harassment. What are the Government going to do to ensure that the strong laws set out in the Equality Act 2010 and beyond are actually abided by, by businesses in this country?

[Justine Greening]

The debate that we have been having in this place is part of how we raise these issues of sexual harassment in the workplace. We need to be clear that it is illegal and unacceptable, and that it needs to be stamped out wherever we see it. There is legal protection, but we are increasingly understanding that attitudes fundamentally need to change. Also, the Department for Education can play a clear role in ensuring that young people at school get the kind of education that they need to understand that these attitudes are unacceptable, and that they get that from an early age.