Protection from Redundancy (Pregnancy and Family Leave) Bill

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 21st October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dan Jarvis]

The hon. Member makes an excellent point. He is absolutely right that some employers are missing a trick here. As I said, I did not expect to get into a debate about Germany, but he makes an interesting point. There are so many amazing examples of extraordinary women who can excel at what they do—of course there are—so it seems incredibly strange that employers would want to discriminate against women in such a way.

I am sure the hon. Member will agree that that says something about the nature of our society. All of us recognise the importance of children and families—they are the bedrock and foundation of our society—so it cannot be right that women are treated in such a way and on this scale. That must be consigned to the past. We must move forward, and the Bill provides a really good opportunity to do that. I would be the first to admit that the Bill is not a panacea, but it is a good step in the right direction and I am grateful for the support offered for it.

Having made some remarks about the example that I referenced and the enforcement mechanism used in Germany, I am sure the Minister agrees that there is merit in us continuing to work closely together through the Bill’s passage to look at how, on a cross-party basis, we can seek to address some of the current safeguards’ shortcomings, namely around the confusion and compliance that I referred to.

On the former, now is the time to end the inconsistency of when and how regulation 10 of the MAPLE regulations is applied. For instance, when a firm is reducing its number of roles, many employers see their obligations to women on maternity leave as a two-stage process, initially by forcing them to compete for their job against colleagues and only then seeking to find them suitable alternative vacancies if they are unsuccessful in retaining their role. That is deeply unfair. Women on maternity leave are at a massive disadvantage, as they might have been out of the workplace for months—obviously, they have been focused on caring for their newborn child. It is also highly irrational. If a new mum has been selected for redundancy, there is little or no chance of their being offered a suitable alternative vacancy, because they will have been filled. As it stands, many workers do not know their rights under the existing regulations, businesses apply them in different ways, and even case law is conflicting.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

I have been reflecting on what the hon. Member has been saying about his very good Bill, which may fill some of the gaps that we have been talking about. I also heard what he said about the evolution of society, and hopefully that—as well as his Bill—will go some way towards helping. My employer before I was elected introduced parental leave allowing both parents to take six months of paid leave. I accept that not every employer can do that, but when we get to the place where, regardless of a person’s gender and their parenting role, they are entitled to rights, employers may stop looking at women as the first place to go when making people redundant. It would no longer be an easy choice for them.

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to be here today, and to follow the right hon. and gallant Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart).

Let me start by paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis). As I am sure everyone will agree, private Members’ Bills are very much sought after, especially by Opposition Members, who do not have much opportunity to change the law—and I think the reason all of us came into politics was our wish to make a difference. My hon. Friend could have chosen any topic for his private Member’s Bill, and I was particularly pleased to note that he had picked this topic, although, cynically, I thought, “Is he going to benefit from this in some way?” I actually texted him last night to say, “Are you planning to have another child?” He was very quick to reassure me, saying that three was enough. He said that he was planning to get another dog, but, no, he was not planning to have another child, so there is no vested interest. I am very proud that a male Member of Parliament is bringing forward a Bill that will protect so many thousands of women who face maternity discrimination. He has earned the right to wear a T-shirt that says, “This is what a feminist looks like”, and I shall be sending him one in the post.

Although I am proud that my hon. Friend has brought this Bill to the House, I also feel a bit disappointed that this important legislation had to come through a private Member’s Bill. There have been many missed opportunities. It could have been brought to the House earlier and made into legislation. It could have been included in an employment Bill, which was mentioned in 2019 in the Queen’s Speech. Hopefully, this private Member’s Bill today will rectify an injustice that has survived for a very long time in our country.

I am passionate about this topic because I witnessed at first hand what maternity discrimination can do to people. After I had my children, I formed a close friendship with eight women locally whose children were around the same age as mine. Out of the eight women, four faced maternity discrimination, which, ultimately, ended up in redundancy when they went back to work. I watched what it did to their lives. The hon. Member for Loughborough (Jane Hunt) mentioned that this was a family matter—that it was not just about the women. I saw that the effect was not just the financial hit to the family, but the mental health implications for the woman herself, for the husband and for the child. One of the babies started losing weight and not feeding properly because of all the stress that his mother was having to go through trying to deal with lawyers, trying to deal with the courts and trying to deal with, frankly speaking, a horrible employer.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

The hon. Member is speaking very powerfully. What she says about how this affects the family is so true. Part of that stems from the outdated idea that women are the supplementary breadwinner from a family perspective. I refer back to what the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) said about women being older now before they have their children, which means that they have progressed further in their career. Actually, in many families, the women in the partnership—obviously we have same-sex partnerships as well—are earning the most money, so the financial impact of redundancy discrimination can be even greater for the family.

[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.