The Government’s consultation Pregnancy and Maternity Discrimination: Consultation on extending redundancy protection for women and new parents, which closed on 5th April 2019, asked for opinions on what possible changes might provide extra protection to pregnant employees. Following this the Government Equalities Office (GEO) published a roadmap for change, setting out proposals on gender inequality that covered legislation, the gender pay gap, the shared parental leave and pay scheme, a new right to carers’ leave, and the private pensions gap.
Focusing on strengthening the support for families in the workplace, on 19 July 2019 the Government launched its Good work plan: Proposals to support families (available here). This sets out three consultations:
- A proposal to introduce a requirement or a voluntary mechanism for employers with 250 or more employees to publish their family-related leave and pay and flexible working policies. It asks also whether job adverts should be required to state clearly whether the job in question could be worked on a flexible basis, and invites discussion on how this might be done. The closing date is 11th October 2019.
- A proposal to introduce the right to neonatal leave from the outset of employment, providing for one week of neonatal parental leave for every week that a baby is in neonatal care, up to a certain limit. This would apply where babies have spent a minimum of two continuous weeks in neonatal care immediately following birth, and leave would be taken at the end of maternity leave. The same employment protections would apply as for ordinary parental leave. The closing date is again 11th October 2019.
- Proposals on reforming parental leave and pay, including enhancing statutory paternity pay, changing how employers recover statutory payments from the state, extending the period of statutory paternity leave, enhancing the shared parental leave and pay scheme, changing statutory maternity leave and/or pay, reforming parental leave, and moving towards a single set of leave entitlements per family. The closing date is 29th November 2019.
Following this, on 22 July 2019 the Government’s response to the Pregnancy and Maternity consultation was published. Stating its determination to tackle pregnancy and maternity discrimination, the Government has commited to ensuring that the redundancy protection period (the right to be offered suitable alternative employment in a redundancy situation) will apply as soon as an employee informs an employer that she is pregnant, and will be extended to continue for six months, or a proportionate period, after a return to work from maternity or adoption leave. There are certain key issues to be tackled, so a taskforce will be established to explore firstly what steps can now be taken to make it easier for pregnant women and new mothers to stay in work, and secondly how to raise awareness of employer obligations and employee rights.
The Government has not provided a timescale for implementing these changes.
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