Protection from Redundancy (Pregnancy and Family Leave) Bill

Debate between Nickie Aiken and Dan Jarvis

2nd reading
Friday 21st October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dan Jarvis]

The right hon. Lady’s point is spot on and she has made it very eloquently. I can see there is consensus. She is right that for a very long time we have grappled with the productivity challenge, and we are still grappling with it. This is part of how we can seek to address the complicated and difficult productivity challenge that we all know we face as a country. I am grateful to her for that useful intervention.

It would be helpful at this point to inject some real-life experiences into the debate so that the House can better understand what this Bill, if successful, might mean for women in the workplace. I am in receipt of a number of real-life cases of women who have suffered injustice simply because they were pregnant. There are many, and I must say some of them are genuinely shocking.

Emily got in touch with me a few weeks ago. She was made redundant from her job more than halfway through her pregnancy and just days before she would have qualified for statutory maternity pay. She is now attempting to appeal the decision on the grounds of pregnancy discrimination and is feeling targeted not only for being pregnant, but for working part time. Her company told Emily it would be making several people redundant, but instead it laid only her off. It did not follow a fair process and she was not offered any alternative employment. Stories such as Emily’s form part of the wider issues surrounding the inconsistent implementation of regulation 10.

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

I welcome this Bill. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is so important because many women are putting off having babies until later in life? When I had my first child at 35, the average age in the Chelsea and Westminster hospital was 39. That means women are further on in their careers, and a Bill of this type will support women who are further into their careers as well as those who may be at the beginning.

[Dan Jarvis]

That is an excellent point that has attracted support from right across the Chamber. The hon. Lady is absolutely right. We must make sure that women are making decisions about their professional careers without having to weigh up all sorts of factors of unfairness. There must be a level playing field and we must make sure that women are not disadvantaged in the workplace, so I completely agree with her and very much hope this Bill will go some way to achieving that ambition.

I was referring to Emily, whose story highlights the need for consistency and the devastating consequences of what can happen when regulation 10 is not applied correctly. Confusion should never be an excuse for discrimination in the workplace. I have been working closely with the TUC and Unison on the Bill, along with the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, which has been incredibly helpful. It has offered to inform all its 160,000 members of the changes that the Bill will introduce, if it is successful. Will the Minister say how, if the Bill is successful, he plans to communicate the changes to workers and how he will clarify to employers their what their legal obligations will be?

On compliance, some firms simply do not offer an alternative role by falsely claiming that one does not exist. Others engineer situations to force new mums out the door. When a business flouts the rules, the onus is on the woman—who, remember, is on maternity leave—to take the matter to an employment tribunal. That highly stressful and costly decision must be made within three months. However, the 2016 findings showed that less than 1% of women lodged a complaint with an employment tribunal.

When we look into that worryingly low statistic, it is painfully obvious why the figure is so small. The scale of the challenge that such women face is almost insurmountable. Sarah, for example, was made redundant by e-mail six months into her pregnancy. Not wanting to be saddled with a gruelling legal battle during the final months of her pregnancy, she decided against taking legal action at that point. After her baby was born, she sought legal advice, only to be told that she no longer had a case because she had not raised her unfair dismissal within the three-month window. She told me that she never realised how vulnerable pregnant women are until it happened to her.

There is also Natasha: after telling her employer that she was pregnant during the pandemic, she was made redundant while other members of her team stayed on. Shortly after, Natasha suffered the heartbreak of a miscarriage. She lost her baby and she lost her job. I know that many across the House have experienced the pain and trauma of a miscarriage and know only too well its profound and devastating impact.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

[Nickie Aiken]

The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent point. What has shocked me in the work I have been doing on my own private Member’s Bill on employment rights for those undertaking fertility treatment is that it is not just small and medium businesses that can have questionable policies on pregnant women or women who are trying to get pregnant, but even the larger ones, including some of the biggest businesses in the country and even major banks. I have been appalled by some of the stories that I have heard from women who have had to take their employer to a tribunal. Does he agree that, through his Bill and my Bill—which will come to the Chamber soon—it is important to give women confidence that their job is secure when they are pregnant or trying to get pregnant?

[Dan Jarvis]

I agree with the hon. Lady’s excellent point, to the extent that I wonder whether she might also be available to sit on the Bill Committee. If we are successful today, I may be knocking on her door. There is an absolute responsibility on business to look at their practices and ensure that they are doing the right thing. My overwhelming experience of the business community is that that is what they want to do, but it is clearly not happening everywhere. For all businesses and companies, particularly the larger ones that she referenced, I hope that their minds will be focused on the issue as part of this process.

Legislation and direction from national Government is an important element, but some of it is cultural. It is about leadership in the business community and senior management looking at their own organisations and satisfying themselves that they are doing the right thing. As parliamentarians, we interact regularly with the business community, and I hope that we will have the conversations with senior business leaders in the weeks and months to come. I hope that those conversations will be well received by business. I am grateful for her intervention and hope to see her in Committee.

I was just making the point about the support that I have encountered for expanding the time limit. It is widely supported by stakeholders and that reform has also been advocated by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the Women and Equalities Committee, the Petitions Committee and the Law Commission. The Government have acknowledged the problem and I have had good conversations about it, but so far they have not made a commitment. I hope that will be a further point of debate, because advising women to make an out-of-time application will not cut it.

I asked the Ministry of Justice how many exceptions had been granted, and in a written answer it said that it did not have that information—I suspect it is very few. Indeed, I have had anecdotal accounts of law firms refusing to represent women if their claim has not been lodged within the current limit, as judges often do not use their discretion. Improving access to justice is an important part of this issue.

Bad employers must know that there will be consequences to their discriminatory treatment. I would be grateful if the Minister would look at when the Government are planning to implement the Law Commission’s April 2020 recommendations and extend the time limit for all employment tribunal claims to six months.

I said earlier that there is no more important job than raising a family. It seems only fair that no one should be penalised for doing so by losing their job. I also said that three in four pregnant women in the workplace experience pregnancy and maternity discrimination, and that 54,000 women a year lose their job just for getting pregnant. We have had a good debate about this. By any metric, ensuring that women are treated decently and fairly should be a foundation of a civilised society, rather than just an aspiration. If we are serious about tackling discrimination in the workplace, providing parity and equality and ensuring that employers fulfil their obligation, we need laws to support that ambition that are fit for the 21st century and the modern workplace. The Bill will not fix everything, but if it is passed, it will be an important step towards providing working families with more security and dignity in the workplace, which they both need and deserve.

Let me say, once again, how grateful I am to all those who have offered support and to all right hon. and hon. Members present. I very much hope that the Bill will have support from the Government and all parties, and I commend it to the House.