Recommendation 13

We welcome the Government’s commitments to tackling workplace discrimination against new and expectant mothers and the actions it is taking to better understand this issue. We echo witnesses’ dismay at the apparent failure of current employment law and the tribunal system to prevent potentially discriminatory redundancies among new and expectant mothers during the pandemic. However, we note these concerns have also previously been expressed by the Women and Equalities 28 Impact of Covid-19 on new parents: one year on Committee as well as in our own report last year, and we support their conclusion that the Government has not taken the necessary preventative actions on this issue— especially in light of its failure to act on the recommendations in our previous report. The Government must swiftly rectify this failing.