Consultation outcome

Pregnancy and maternity discrimination: extending redundancy protection for women and new parents

From:: Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy
Published: 25 January 2019
Last updated: 22 July 2019 — See all updates

Read the full outcome

Pregnancy and maternity discrimination consultation: government response

PDF, 386 KB, 23 pages

Detail of outcome

The government response proposes:

to extend the redundancy protection period for 6 months once a new mother has returned to work
to afford the same protection to those taking adoption leave
to extend redundancy protection for those returning from shared parental leave. We will consult further on the design of this protection over coming months.

Detail of feedback received

We received 643 responses to this consultation.

538 responses sought an extension to the time limits to tribunal cases. This is the subject of a separate consultation on sexual harassment in the workplace, launched on 11 July 2019.

The rest of the responses focused on questions around extending redundancy protection and the current advice and guidance. The majority strongly agreed or agreed:

that 6 months would be an adequate period of “return to work” for redundancy protection purposes
that protection should be extended to parents who have taken adoption leave and shared parental leave

Original consultation

Consultation description

This consultation seeks views on extending redundancy protection for pregnant women and new parents. It also sets out more widely what the department is doing to tackle pregnancy and maternity discrimination, and explain the current law on redundancy protection.

This is a commitment in the government’s response to the Taylor Review, and had previously been raised by the Women and Equalities Select Committee (WESC).

The consultation recommends that we extend the current protection afforded under the Maternity and Paternity Leave etc Regulations 1999 (which apply to the period of maternity leave) to cover the period of pregnancy and a period after, an extension of 6 months. It asks how best to achieve that and who would be covered, for example, those taking Shared Parental Leave or Adoption Leave.

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