17th September 2025 | Employment

Understanding Employment Rights Bill: Protections for Pregnant Women & New Mothers

The Employment Rights Bill introduces stronger protections for pregnant women and new mothers in the workplace. In this article, we look at the current legal protections, what’s changing under the new legislation, and address a key concern: could these changes make employers less likely to hire women?

What’s The Current Policy?

Pregnant women and new mothers have protection from being dismissed by reason of their pregnancy or absence on maternity leave.

In addition, pregnant women and new mothers have extra protection from being made redundant.
They must be offered suitable alternative jobs in priority to other employee if redundancies happen (positive discrimination).

It’s unlawful and automatically unfair to dismiss someone because of:
- Their pregnancy,
- Taking (or trying to take) maternity leave, or
- Having pregnancy-related illness.

What’s Changing?

The Government will strengthen protections for pregnant women and new mothers by making it unlawful to dismiss them at all during pregnancy, maternity leave, and for six months after returning to work. This enhanced protection will relate not solely to dismissals by reason of redundancy but to any dismissal with limited exceptions, for example, due to gross misconduct.
The objective is prevent maternity and pregnancy discrimination and help women stay in the workforce.

How Will It Work?

The Employment Rights Bill gives the Government the power to create detailed rules.

These rules will explain:

When it’s allowed to dismiss a pregnant woman/new mother.
How the six-month protection period after returning to work will apply.
What procedures employers must follow (e.g. giving notice, providing evidence).

The Government may also extend these protections to other parents (e.g. after Adoption or Shared Parental Leave).

Women Less Likely to Be Hired?

There are concerns that some employers might worry about hiring women if dismissal rules become stricter.

To prevent this, the Government will:

Define when it’s fair to dismiss a pregnant woman or new mother.
Consult with groups like trade unions, parental rights organisations, and business representatives.
Use this consultation to make sure the policy works fairly and doesn’t cause unintended problems like discrimination in hiring.

However, if an employer does make recruitment decisions based on concerns that a female candidate might become pregnant, that will be unlawful discrimination.