The government has today opened a consultation on extending the redundancy protection for employees on parental leave (among other proposals). Currently women on maternity leave and at risk of redundancy have the right to be offered suitable alternative vacancies before such vacancies are offered to any other employees at risk. The proposal is that this period of protection should be extended to cover not just maternity leave but the six weeks after new mothers return to work.

The Government hopes that this will be an effective means of addressing the problem of women being forced out of work when they return.

The trouble with this proposal is that the protection from redundancy for women on maternity leave was never particularly valuable in the first place. It was never a protection against being put at risk of redundancy. Instead it gave women slightly preferential treatment if suitable alternative vacancies arose. Given that suitable alternative vacancies arise comparatively rarely, this protection is inherently of limited use, and simply extending the period for which it applies does not change that.

However, the consultation proposes other measures which may be of more assistance to new parents – such as extending the Tribunal time limit for pregnancy and maternity discrimination claims from three months to six months. Although discretion already exists for the Tribunal to extend time where there is a good reason, and the Tribunal may well regard pregnancy or maternity as a good reason, there is no guidance specifically confirming the same, meaning that many time-barred prospective claimants (already juggling a number of childcare responsibilities) may lose heart.

A link to the consultation is here. We will monitor its progress and post updates as matters progress.

In related news, the campaign group Pregnant Then Screwed is lobbying the government to monitor the use of NDAs in agreements settling claims for pregnancy and maternity discrimination, amidst concerns that these may be exploited to silence women who would rather stand up for themselves than take a financial settlement but back down due to their vulnerable position and fears that their reputation may be damaged. These concerns are similar to those expressed by the WEC in relation to sexual harassment claims. It will be interesting to see how this campaign develops.