#adoption

Under current rules, before offering redundancy to an employee on maternity leave, shared parental leave or adoption leave, employers have an obligation to offer them a suitable alternative vacancy where one exists. This is set out in Regulation 10 of the MAPLE.

The new legislation will enable this redundancy protection to be extended so that it applies to pregnant women as well as new parents returning to work from a relevant form of leave. This will, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) said, help shield new parents and expectant mothers from workplace discrimination, offering them greater job security at an important time in their lives.

The aim is to extend the MAPLE protections through an expanded period covering from when an employee tells their employer they are pregnant until 18 months after the birth.

The 18-month window will ensure that an employee returning from a year of maternity leave can receive six months’ additional redundancy protection. The 18-month window will also apply to adoption leave and shared parental leave.

For those taking shared parental leave who have not taken maternity or adoption leave, there is a six-week threshold of continuous leave that needs to be met for the requirements to apply for a period of time after shared parental leave has ended. Where the six-week threshold is not met, the requirements apply during shared parental leave.

While the details are unlikely to be changed, it is important to note that the above relates to draft regulations which have still to be formally adopted by Parliament.