Oral Answers to Questions

Paula Sherriff Excerpts

Thursday 23rd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

Further to the response that the Minister gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore), will she say what concrete action the Government are taking to address the fact that 54,000 women are forced out of work in this country every year due to maternity discrimination? Women want action, not just warm words.

[Anne Milton]

I point out to the hon. Lady that it is illegal and unlawful to discriminate in such a way, and employers are breaking the law in doing it. As constituency MPs, we can highlight to the women we meet or who come to our surgeries—[Interruption.] The hon. Lady says that she wants action from the Government, but action has been taken—it is against the law.