When Your Protection Starts
Your legal protection does not begin when your maternity leave starts. It begins from the moment you notify your employer in writing that you are pregnant. That notification triggers statutory protections under the Protection from Redundancy (Pregnancy and Family Leave) Act — and from that moment your employer has legal obligations toward you that they do not have toward your non-protected colleagues.
Protection continues throughout your pregnancy, throughout your statutory maternity leave, and extends into the return-to-work period — typically up to 18 months from the expected week of childbirth or birth date. This extended protection period is one of the most significant and most overlooked aspects of UK maternity redundancy law.
The same protections apply to those on adoption leave, shared parental leave and neonatal leave.
The Priority Redeployment Rule — Your Most Powerful Protection
If a redundancy situation arises while you are in your protected period, your employer has a legal duty under Regulation 10 to offer you any suitable alternative vacancy before offering it to anyone else. Without interview. Without competition. Ahead of your non-protected colleagues.
This is not a discretionary consideration. It is a legal obligation. If a suitable vacancy exists anywhere in the business — including subsidiaries — and your employer fails to offer it to you, that failure can make your dismissal automatically unfair and open the door to a pregnancy discrimination claim under the Equality Act 2010.
What counts as a suitable alternative vacancy? The role must be on terms and conditions that are not substantially less favourable than your existing contract. Location, pay, status and working hours all matter. Your employer cannot simply offer you any available role — it must be genuinely suitable.
Selection Criteria and Scoring Matrices
If you are placed in a redundancy selection pool, the way your employer scores you matters enormously. Pregnancy-related sickness absence and ante-natal appointments cannot legally be counted against you in any attendance scoring or performance matrix. If your employer uses an attendance record as a selection criterion and includes pregnancy-related absences in that calculation, that is indirect pregnancy discrimination — and potentially direct discrimination if it can be shown that the criterion was applied specifically to disadvantage you.
The same principle applies to performance metrics. Your employer cannot penalise you for targets missed while you were on statutory maternity leave. Your performance must be assessed on what you were actually present and able to do.
What to Do if Your Role Is Put at Risk
Act immediately and follow these steps.
First — confirm everything in writing. If you have not already notified your employer of your pregnancy in writing, do it now. The written notification triggers your statutory protections and starts the clock on your protected period. If you are already on leave or have returned, confirm your status and key dates in writing to your employer.
Second — request the vacancy list. During any consultation meeting, formally ask HR to provide you with a list of all suitable alternative vacancies across the organisation. Do not wait for them to come to you. Put the request in writing.
Third — document everything. Keep copies of all scoring matrices, meeting minutes, letters and email correspondence. If you are being scored in a redundancy selection process, ask for your scores in writing and ask for the methodology used to reach them.
Fourth — raise concerns early. If something does not feel right — if you suspect your pregnancy is a factor in your selection, if you have not been offered vacancies that appear suitable, if your attendance scoring includes pregnancy-related absences — raise it formally. A grievance raised early is far more powerful than one raised after the fact.
The Consequences for Employers Who Get This Wrong
Dismissing a protected employee without offering a suitable alternative vacancy is automatically unfair dismissal — regardless of the employer's stated reason. On top of that, where the dismissal is connected to pregnancy or maternity leave, it also constitutes unlawful discrimination under the Equality Act 2010. There is no qualifying period of service required to bring a pregnancy discrimination claim. Day one rights.
The financial and reputational exposure for employers who mishandle maternity redundancy situations is significant. The protections exist precisely because the law recognises that pregnant workers and those on family leave are uniquely vulnerable to workplace disadvantage.
You are not just protected. You are among the most strongly protected employees in UK law. Know it. Use it.
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