Extending Redundancy Protection For New Parents (UK)

The UK government last week issued a consultation on "extending redundancy protection for women and new parents".

The proposals would mean that women who have recently returned to work after a period of maternity leave would have the same protection as women on maternity leave in a redundancy situation. The government's provisional view is that six months would be an appropriate period of "return to work" protection. This is perhaps based on one of the recommendations in the 2017 Maternity Action report we commented upon.

As the law currently stands, a woman whose job becomes redundant during her maternity leave period is entitled to be offered (as opposed to merely having the opportunity to apply for) a suitable available vacancy where one is available with the employer or an associated employer. If an employer fails to comply with this obligation, any dismissal will be automatically unfair and probably, though not necessarily, discriminatory. This obligation currently only arises in connection with women actually on maternity leave: if the woman has returned to work or has not yet gone on leave then her employer is not under this strict obligation to offer her a suitable available vacancy in priority to others. It still has to take reasonable steps to find her alternative employment, as would be the case with other potentially redundant employees. Similar protection applies to parents on adoption leave or shared parental leave.

The government is also seeking views on whether parents returning to work from adoption, shared parental and unpaid parental leave should be granted similar additional protection in a redundancy situation. Based on the existing situation in relation to leave and pay, it seems likely that consistency of treatment across the family-friendly regime would be maintained.

The government has launched this consultation in response to concerns that too many women are encountering discrimination after having children and are "forced out of work" when they seek to return. Research commissioned by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in 2016 found that one in nine women (11%) said they had been fired or made redundant when they returned to work after having a child, or were treated so badly they felt forced to leave their job. The detail of that report puts that headline number into a little more context. In fact, only 2% (one in fifty) were actually dismissed and for the others the report was careful to...

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