Helen Lucas, a solicitor in the Employment law team at Royds Withy King in Swindon and Marlborough, explores the findings of a new report into pregnancy discrimination in the workplace and offers advice to Wiltshire’s employers and employees.

The Women and Equalities Committee has published a new report which highlights the level of discrimination faced by employees who are pregnant or have recently given birth.

The report suggests that the number of women discriminated against has significantly increased over recent years and calls for changes to be made to ensure that greater protection is provided.

Under current legislation it is unlawful for an employer to treat an employee unfavourably because she is pregnant, on maternity leave or because of an illness related to her pregnancy.

However, employers are not prevented from dismissing employees for unrelated reasons such as redundancy. The report challenges the law on this and one of its recommendations is that redundancy should only be permitted in very limited circumstances, for example, where a business is in serious financial difficulty (similar to the law in Germany).

The concern is that employers can fairly easily create a restructure or remove a job role as a way of dismissing a pregnant employee or new mother. Although the employee may feel that the true reason is pregnancy, this is often very difficult to prove and challenges often fail.

The German system would make it far more difficult for employers to dismiss, but businesses are likely to argue that this goes too far. Not all businesses are using redundancy to hide discrimination; many will have genuine business needs to remove roles and to make structural changes. The law should protect women against discrimination, but this will need to be balanced with the risk of imposing restrictions on employers which make it difficult for businesses to function efficiently.

Although the report shows that the number of women feeling that they have been discriminated against has risen, this increase is not mirrored in the number of claims progressing through the Employment Tribunals. There are two main reasons for this: 1. It now costs £1,200 to issue and pursue a claim. Many women simply cannot afford this, particularly at a time when their earnings have been reduced to the level of statutory maternity pay and when they have the additional cost of a baby; 2. Tribunal claims need to be brought within three months of the alleged act. This will mean bringing a claim during or shortly after maternity leave when the employee’s baby is still very young. Many women decide that they do not want to deal with the stress or invest the time that bringing a claim involves.

The report suggests a review of the time limit and a reduction in the Tribunal fees so as to address these barriers.

It is clear from reading the comments posted recently in response to the report that many employers still have a very outdated view of women at work. Several comments have been posted to say that employers would avoid recruiting women of child bearing age.

Some of the issues arise because there are employers with discriminatory views. However, often the problem is a lack of understanding, particularly when it comes to small employers who do not have a dedicated HR team.