Protection from Redundancy (Pregnancy and Family Leave) Bill

Debate between Theresa Villiers and Dan Jarvis

2nd reading
Friday 21st October 2022 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

I want to express enthusiastic support for the Bill. It will plug an important gap in protection. Looking back at the proposals from my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller), we want to avoid a situation where, if there was a complete ban on all redundancies under any circumstances, that could mean that employers were having to retain employees when there was no longer work for them to do. The Bill is a reasonable compromise, as it is perhaps more difficult to take forward the previous proposals of my right hon. Friend.

[Dan Jarvis]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady. She makes a helpful contribution. As she and other right hon. and hon. Members will understand, including the right hon. Member for Basingstoke, there are different views about this matter. In the end we have arrived at a reasonable and sensible compromise. The debate on that particular issue will continue, and if the Bill is successful there will be a further opportunity to debate such matters in Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dan Jarvis]

The hon. Lady raises a really helpful point, following the one made by the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson). The nature of the Bill, and what we seek to achieve through its passage, speaks to the decency that I think we all want to see in our society. In the Bill, we have something in front of the House that is good for pregnant mums, good for new mums and good for families. It is also good for business, as it is in businesses’ own interest to be responsible employers and to make the most of their employees.

I very much hope that the Bill will get support from across the House. I sense that it will, and I am encouraged by that. I have spent a lot of time thinking about what the critique of the Bill would be and whether any right hon. or hon. Members would have issues or problems with it. I have tried as much as I possibly can to get around as many hon. Members as possible and have those conversations, but nobody has been able to say that they think there is anything wrong with the Bill. The only debate is around the extent of its ambition and whether the protections could be greater and longer. That is potentially a point of debate, but I hope that we now have the basis of a Bill that all decent right hon. and hon. Members will be able to support—fingers crossed.

[Theresa Villiers]

An important potential positive consequence of the hon. Gentleman’s Bill and further protection for women in the workplace is helping us to tackle our productivity problem in this country. If we can monopolise the vast resource of women in the workplace, including pregnant women and new mums, it will make us a more competitive nation, help us to plug skills gaps and make us more productive, which ultimately will raise living standards.

[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.