Happy New Year Everyone! The new year often brings about a period of change and UK employment law is no different, with lots coming up in 2024. Most significant from a Change Project perspective, is an extension of the rights of pregnant employees in redundancy situations. As it currently stands, employees who are on maternity leave, shared parental leave and adoption leave have the right to be offered a suitable alternative vacancy, if one is available, before being made redundant. This gives these employees ‘priority access’ to redeployment opportunities over other employees who are also at risk of redundancy.
The Protection for Redundancy (Pregnancy and Family Leave) Act 2023, which comes into effect from 6 April 2024, extends this priority status to pregnant employees as well as those who have recently returned from maternity, adoption and shared parental leave. The priority status applies for up to 18 months after the child is born. However, it should be noted that this priority status is only in relation to redeployment and does not prevent these employees from being selected for redundancy.
There are a number of potential implications for employers as result of these new regulations including how to calculate and track when protection starts and ends for employees, ensuring that managers are aware of the new rules and considering whether any training is required to improve their skills and confidence in managing these situations. In addition, when there is a failure to offer a suitable alternative role to a priority employee, the employee may have a claim for an automatic unfair dismissal which, if successful at an employment tribunal, could result in an uncapped compensatory award. It could also result in a potential discrimination claim. As such, this is a key change with significant consequences and is worth employers taking note.
If you would like to discuss how this may impact any future or imminent projects you have planned do get in touch with us and we would be happy to discuss this with you further.
The full Act can be found here: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/17/enacted
Written by Kate Woosnam, Associate
