Dismissal and pregnancy and other parental rights 


Dismissing a woman because she is pregnant, or for any reason connected with her pregnancy, is automatically unfair (section 99(1)(a), ERA 96). 


Dismissing a woman while she is on maternity leave is automatically unfair if the reason for dismissal is that she has given birth, or any other reason connected with her having given birth (section 99(1)(b), ERA 96).


Dismissing a woman for a pregnancy-related illness or for any other reason connected to pregnancy or maternity during the protected period (which lasts from the start of pregnancy to the end of maternity leave) is pregnancy or maternity discrimination under the Equality Act 2010 (EA 10) (see Chapter 7). 


As long as some part of the reason for dismissing a woman is to do with her pregnancy or maternity, it will be automatically unfair. It does not matter that there might be other reasons for the dismissal.


The protection against automatically unfair dismissal for pregnancy or maternity reasons extends to temporary employees (Webb v EMO Cargo (UK) Limited [1994] QB 718).


This protection also extends to the non-renewal of a fixed-term contract where the reason for non-renewal is that the woman will be unavailable for work at the start of the new term because of pregnancy. The EAT said that any other conclusion would encourage employers to try to get around the laws banning pregnancy discrimination by issuing successive fixed-term contracts (Caruana v Manchester Airport [1995] UKEAT 687/94/1411).


Dismissing employees for exercising maternity, parental, paternity or adoption leave or shared parental leave rights is automatically unfair (see Chapter 9). For the law on pregnancy and maternity in the context of redundancy, see Chapter 11.