The right hon. Lady’s point is spot on and she has made it very eloquently. I can see there is consensus. She is right that for a very long time we have grappled with the productivity challenge, and we are
still grappling with it. This is part of how we can seek to address the complicated and difficult productivity challenge that we all know we face as a country. I am grateful to her for that useful intervention.
It would be helpful at this point to inject some real-life experiences into the debate so that the House can better understand what this Bill, if successful, might mean for women in the workplace. I am in receipt of a number of real-life cases of women who have suffered injustice simply because they were pregnant. There are many, and I must say some of them are genuinely shocking.
Emily got in touch with me a few weeks ago. She was made redundant from her job more than halfway through her pregnancy and just days before she would have qualified for statutory maternity pay. She is now attempting to appeal the decision on the grounds of pregnancy discrimination and is feeling targeted not only for being pregnant, but for working part time. Her company told Emily it would be making several people redundant, but instead it laid only her off. It did not follow a fair process and she was not offered any alternative employment. Stories such as Emily’s form part of the wider issues surrounding the inconsistent implementation of regulation 10.