National Assembly for Wales

May I welcome everyone to this meeting of the Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee? Item 1 on our agenda is introductions, apologies, substitutions and declarations of interest. We've received one apology from Rhianon Passmore. Are there any declarations of interest? No.

We will move on, then, to item 2, which is the first evidence session for our inquiry into pregnancy, maternity and work in Wales. I'm very pleased to welcome Dr Alison Parken, Wales committee member for the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and Rosalind Bragg, director of Maternity Action. Welcome to you both.

If you're content, we'll move straight into questions. Perhaps I might begin by asking you for an overview of the issues faced by pregnant women and mothers in relation to employment. A general question to begin with, and I know you could give a very comprehensive answer, but if you could just provide an overview, that would be very welcome at this stage.

Okay, thanks very much. Maternity Action focuses on women and their partners during pregnancy, maternity leave and return to work. So, I'll just focus on that particular time period. 

It's extraordinarily difficult to change jobs or get a job during that time period; it's very difficult to find work that is sufficiently flexible to accommodate work and care responsibilities once you have a baby. It's virtually impossible to find a job when you're pregnant. This makes it difficult for women to enter the workforce during this time, and it's also difficult to change jobs during this time. I think that puts women in a very difficult negotiating position when they encounter problems at work.

The statutory rates of maternity/paternity and shared parental pay are extraordinarily low by European standards, so families face quite significant financial difficulties when mothers take time off after they've had a baby. I think the benefits available to support families are quite limited.

Okay. And Alison.

I would just like to say, way back in 2003 I was involved with the Equal Opportunities Commission in Wales, and in the last general formal investigation into pregnancy and maternity, I'm very sad to see that things have not improved substantially at all—in fact, some things have got worse.

So, key issues are around recruitment; still employers feeling that women should declare if they are pregnant during the recruitment process; still women having problems with contact with their employer whilst they're on maternity leave, problems with return to work, dismissal, redundancy during those periods. And although they now have the right to request flexible working, half of mothers who had those requests approved were saying that they felt that they received some sort of unfavourable treatment following on from that. And also, where health and safety are still not being looked after properly, women are still going on maternity leave earlier than they maybe would've chosen to do.

And I think in the employment and pay data, we still see the long-term effects of a motherhood penalty in a labour market that is constructed on the idea that we work full time over your lifetime, and that when you deviate from that norm, there are still employment penalties. And there's a difference, I think, between women who are in professional careers and in the public sector who are better protected from those deleterious effects than those who are in skilled or unskilled work, who are easily replaceable in a labour market that's getting more and more precarious, and where there's fewer of the wrapround employment conditions than we would like to see.

Okay. Well, thank you both for that. It's useful to set things in that sort of general context, and we'll be coming back to those matters that you mentioned with further questions this morning. But I wonder, Alison, if I might ask a question relating to employers. There seems to be a disconnect in terms of the EHRC survey, where 87 per cent of employers stated that it was in the best interests of organisations to support pregnant women and those on maternity leave, whereas 71 of mothers reported negative or discriminatory experiences. Could you tell the committee what you think lies behind that disconnect—what would be the reasons for that?

Yes. The commission has thought about this and they think, in some cases, there's a lack of understanding by employers about the breadth and depth of their statutory responsibilities, so they may well feel that they're doing the right thing, they've got it covered. And in other cases, they may have very good policies, but the line managers who are then having to have conversations with employees are not really understanding their responsibilities or how to make this process work very well. So, they may think they're doing brilliantly, but perhaps they're not quite in those conversations, and part of the EHRC's response to this is to promote working forward. So, that's working with employers. That includes a resourcing toolkit that's very practical and gives case study examples of how a line manager unfamiliar with the legislation might have a conversation with an employee that facilitates a proper two-way open conversation about what's going to happen, and what will work for the employee and the employer. So, there are some practical things, but it may well be that employers do think they've got it covered and employees don't think they've got it covered.

I think there's also potentially a desirability effect. If you're asked if you think legislation in this area is a good thing, and that you're doing a good job, you're unlikely to say 'no'. In the 2003 research, we did a broader piece of research that included sickness absence more generally, and within that there were health and safety questions, questions about people returning to work from long periods of sick leave, and pregnancy and maternity. And we found in Wales, because it was a broader thing—it wasn't particularly focused on pregnancy and maternity—smaller employers did tend to say, 'Well, actually, it's really very difficult and we're not managing it terribly well and it's a bit of a pain.' So, they were a bit more open potentially, and I'm sad to say we had the quote then that came out where small employer said, 'Society needs small children, small businesses don't.' So, there may be a desirability effect in the way that people are prepared to answer those questions.

Okay, that's very useful. One further question from me before we move on to others. Universal credit: there's a great deal of concern, I think, in terms of its general impact, but also in terms of its potential impact on mothers. What would you say about that in terms of the concerns that you would have, and also what might be done to mitigate the possible effects?

Do you want to go first and I'll answer afterwards?

Sure. The tax credits framework which preceded universal credit had disregards for a large proportion of statutory maternity pay and all maternity allowance, and what that meant was that families could earn a little bit more before they lost their benefits. The universal credit does not disregard maternity allowance at all. So, consequently, someone [correction: a lone parent] on a full rate of maternity allowance is not entitled to universal credit, and therefore not entitled to the Sure Start maternity grant of £500, which seems to be extraordinarily unfair—we're talking about very low-income families here. 

There have also been changes in relation to 18 to 25-year-olds, so that, previously, women who became pregnant in that age group would get a higher rate of income support, but under universal credit, they don't; they're kept at the lower rate that's applicable to the 18 to 25 age group, which is about £15 a week less. So, those are the problems, and I think to address that, really, we need more funds going in to support for pregnant women and new mothers. 

Yes, okay. 

The EHRC cumulative impact assessment found that, on average, across the whole income distribution, women will lose considerably more from the changes than men, possibly £400 a year from the reforms. But lone parents, 90 per cent of whom are women, who are more likely to rely on benefits than paid work, will disproportionately be affected. I think the other problem is the lack of a second-earner disregard within the universal credit system. So, that will act as a disincentive for women to take low hours of paid work. That taper drops off much quicker for the second earner. So, you might be offered—. If it's less than 16 hours a week of work, that will have a negative impact on the whole of the household income and dissuade women. So, one of the things you ask is about what can be done; it's about higher hours of regular work for women. It will become, I think, more difficult for women to respond to these ad hoc requests to do an extra shift or an extra few hours, because there will be a worry about what that will mean at the end of the following month in terms of how much welfare transfer they will lose—they'll be asked to do this calculation: 'If I do this extra bit of work, how much will the household finances be hit?' So, there's a disincentive built in there, I'm afraid.

Okay. Thank you both for that. We now move to Bethan Sayed.

The research finds that there is less evidence of discrimination and less evidence of women not being able to return to their original jobs in the public sector than in the private sector. But I should say that, within the private sector, some of the very large companies also have very good policies. It's particularly the smaller companies that struggle with some of these issues. The example you give is a very high-profile one, but I know that the Welsh Government now has much more regularised flexible working. I think that's increasing in the public sector in Wales too. We no longer have a situation where, if you want to come back and work part-time, employers will say, 'Well, that's fine, but you can't come back to your existing role, you have to downgrade'.

So, in some of the research work that I've done with women in the public sector, they've been very happy that they could come back to their existing job as social workers and environmental standards officers—pretty high-grade professional work. So, I think some of those things are working much better in the public sector now. But, I think they still recognise that if they then want to be promoted subsequently, they will have to go back to working full-time, and although there's a right to request to work part-time, there's no right to request to go back to full-time work, and we've still got this situation where career progression is very much associated with full-time permanent work. So, there will still be deleterious effects. There are some differences between sectors, but they're also, I think—the research shows significant differences with business size.

I think it's all of those things, Bethan. I don't think you can pinpoint one thing. There is a lack of advice for employees often. The commission is drawing out of the report that women still often are not aware of their rights, so there are recommendations about improving access to employee information. Again, there's that discussion about can this be done through the health service rather than having to go to an advice shop to ask for that. There are difficulties with line managers, very much identified by the EHRC, hence the work with Working Forward. But lots of the bigger companies have signed up for Working Forward. As a commission, we will be thinking about how some of that good practice from bigger employers can be passed on to the smaller employers and also what the Welsh Government can do there in terms of talking about how it now works around maternity, pregnancy and flexible working.

The cultural issue, I think, is key. I kind of wonder if we're almost coming to a point in time where we've got so much data—I mean, I've been churning out data on women in the workplace for nearly 20 years now in Wales. I think we know what the issues are quantitatively and I think we have to get to a point where we stop trying to prove there's a problem and actually do that cultural work. That's difficult because it means getting under this kind of unacknowledged sense that the ideal worker is someone who's not potentially going to disappear at any minute and then might want to come back or not follow that kind of unacknowledged career track—so, you are supposed to be at certain stages by certain ages, which assumes that you're going to be there for the long term and not deviate from that full-time permanent norm. So, it's all of those things. 

Rosalind.

On our advice line we answer about 2,000 calls a year from women from across the UK, about 3 per cent from Wales. The cases that come through to us are, in many cases, really appalling treatment of women. In many cases the employer fairly clearly knows that they're breaking the law but they're relying on the fact that very few women do anything about it. I think that's a very, very common experience we find. We've run a casework service recently and even with women who were offered lawyers to support them with their case, we lost three out of 40 in the last tranche. It's very, very unusual for women to take action. So, employers can rely on getting away with bad practice. 

Why are they not taking action, just so I understand? Is it because they fear they won't have any job at the end of it if they take legal action?

There are a whole lot of reasons why women don't take action. They want to keep their job, they don't want to rock the boat, and they've got well-grounded fears that taking action can do that. They may not know their rights. They will struggle to get access to advice. Our advice line, which is a specialist advice line in this area, answers one in every five woman's calls. We can only assist one in every five. So, we know that there are a lot of women who simply can't speak to someone who can provide them with the advice they need. 

So, you'd say that type of specialist support would need to be enhanced. You're doing it—is anybody else doing it?

There are a few charities that do do it. So, Citizens Advice bureaux, where they've got the resources to do it—40 per cent of our referrals are from Citizens Advice, so clearly there are a lot of agencies that don't have that expertise. Of course, the Government Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service advice service does this work, though certainly not in the detail that's required. The callers we get have often tried calling ACAS and have come to us because they couldn't get a detailed answer to their question. So, I think that's it. But also, I think during pregnancy and with a new baby it's an exhausting time and the emotional demands of taking action at work are quite significant. So, I think a lot of women just decide that's too hard and they're more likely to leave their job rather than seek to resolve a dispute. 

I think it's interesting. There's a kind of mismatch here, isn't there, that we see an increase in the gig economy and people working marginal hours for several employers, and a rise in involuntary self-employment because of a lack of good quality part-time work often. So, there's a request, I think, from both employers and employees for flexible working. So, why can't we move to more flexible working recruitment as a norm, really?

Instead of it just happening ad hoc when the circumstances arise. 

Yes. We seem to have gone from 'full-time, part-time' to 'full-time, part-time, zero hours'. I'm sure there must be a better way of introducing more formally the flexibility that employers and employees seem to want. Again, the EHRC toolkits under Working Forward are trying to promote that. Chwarae Teg are working hard to help employers formalise what they're doing informally in a way that perhaps doesn't suit them or the employees quite as well.

Women returning to work need to know that they are welcome, that their skills and talents will still be recognised and rewarded, that there still are opportunities for them to progress in the employment and not to be seen as a bit of an inconvenience, I think. I think we're going to come on and talk about the economic action plan and the employability plan, and it's very important that mothers—young mothers, middle-aged mothers—are seen as a key vulnerable group, if you like, in terms of losing their attachment to the labour market around pregnancy and maternity.

Okay. And Siân.

I think from the commission's perspective, we could follow up with a piece of written evidence on the rights. I don't have that in front of me today—whether or not there are current recommendations. So, we'll follow up from a commission perspective on that.

It's very interesting, some of the previous work that I've done with employers around the assumptions that employers make about part-time work and the way that part-time work is structured. Through doing the employment and pay analysis because of the Welsh-specific equality duty on pay differences, when employers look at their data and they see how many women are working multiple part-time jobs for them, or multiple part-time and casual jobs to build earnings, that can help to undermine the assumption that women are very happy in part-time work and they don't want to progress, and things are absolutely fine, and of course they've been able to have some leave and come back, and there's an assumption that that's fine. But part-time work is what some women want for some period of time, often. But the jobs that women tend to do, the five Cs that we've talked about, tend to be only offered, or the majority offered, on a part-time basis. So, some women might want part-time work for a period of time. They might want that flexibility. But there's something about the way that work is structured that is a cultural assumption that everything is fine and people don't want to progress. Am I making this clear? So, the data can help people undo some of the cultural assumptions is what I'm saying, around the way that work is organised, and not to assume that women are very happy in part-time work and they don't want to progress.

Okay. I'm just interested in the rights themselves, if you could provide us with that information.

A note, yes—that would be very useful.

Also, are there particular rights in this field that are in danger of being undermined because we're leaving the European Union? Because a lot of these rights have been gained through our membership of the European Union.

That's right, and they are in regulations and—

Yes, so if you could let us know about that, I think that's quite important.

Maternity Action has got a view on the legislation. I think one of the basic problems with our current framework of rights is that it's up to women to take action to be able to raise a complaint, and as I said before, it's often very difficult for women to do that. Very few women actually proceed with pursuing a grievance or taking their employer to the tribunal. In fact, only one in four will actually speak to their employer about a problem. So, I think it's important to look at shifting the law to a more preventative focus rather than relying on the individual women to make complaints, given the scale of the problem. Three quarters of all women experience some form of discrimination at work when they're pregnant or new mothers. One aspect of that is around redundancy protection. So, at UK level there was a commitment given to review redundancy protections for new mothers with the possibility of looking at the German model, which prohibits redundancies except in limited circumstances. That was given in response to the Women and Equalities Select Committee inquiry into pregnancy and maternity-related discrimination. Certainly, from our point of view, introducing a German-style protection against redundancies would be extraordinarily valuable because it puts the onus on the employer to show the rationale for the redundancy, rather than for the women to be able to demonstrate that it's a discriminatory redundancy. We see a lot of redundancies that are manifestly unfair.

Also, in relation to health and safety, there is work that can be done without regulations being changed but, at the moment, we're not seeing it. So, we have a lot of very bad practice in health and safety. So, roughly, half of all women in the EHRC research had either not had their employer raise health and safety issues with them, or had health and safety risks that had been identified that weren't subsequently addressed. As a result, 4 per cent of pregnant women and new mothers leave their jobs because of health and safety concerns. So, the regime of health and safety protections at the moment isn't working, and that can be done by regulations. It could be done by guidance also, but I think regulations would be more effective, in this case, in requiring an effective risk assessment to be undertaken, and providing for an effective system of ensuring compliance. At the moment, if you have an employer who is making your life difficult by asking you to lift heavy weights or do other work that is placing your health or your baby's health at risk, you essentially have to go to the employment tribunal to resolve that because there are no effective systems in place to be able to resolve that in a more timely and less expensive manner.

Okay. Thank you. A lot of that won't be in competence for us, but it's useful to know the context, I think, as well.

Yes, it is useful for the context, absolutely. Okay. Thank you, both. Now, Jenny Rathbone.

Okay. Good morning. You've talked, so far, about a lot of the expectations that women of a certain age will disappear to have children. What we haven't talked about, it seems to me, is the biggest problem, which is the lack of expectations about men. I don't really see, in your submissions, any focus on ensuring that the raising of children is everybody's problem, not just women's problem. Have you considered renaming your organisation 'Paternity Action', for example? Because that, it's seems to me, is the biggest problem: the fundamental cause of the discrimination is the assumption that it's women's job to look after children. We've already heard, in our discussions with stakeholders, that when men ask for leave—parental leave—they get refused. So, I just wondered if you could tell us what you think we can do about what I think is the fundamental problem in this area.

Well, at the moment, there's a shared parental leave regime, which isn't working. We have, roughly, 1 per cent of eligible partners taking up that leave, and for relatively short periods of time. So, that regime is extremely complicated—unnecessarily complicated. It's badly paid. But I think another factor is that, across the world, it's very difficult to get fathers to take up leave. Even where you've got leave regimes that are well-paid, are flexible and are well-supported, take-up by fathers is very low, and so you really need to have a programme that has got the incentives built into the leave scheme. So, in Germany, for instance, if both parents take two months of parental leave, the family gets an additional two months of paid leave. That's actually worked to increase take-up of leave by fathers from 3 per cent to 30 per cent. So, you have got some mechanisms that can be used in the leave framework. It is extraordinarily difficult to prompt fathers to take leave under the current badly paid arrangements. It is, unfortunately, the case that women will take badly paid leave, but, on average, men won't.

So, in the German situation, who pays for the extra two months? Is it an assumption that one of the parents takes two months and then the other one takes two months, and then there's an additional two months—?

The German framework is a period of maternity leave. I think it's 14 weeks, which is compulsory, and that's paid at 100 per cent of salary.

The maternity leave, yes?

For maternity leave. And so that's a separate leave to parental leave, and that's a leave entitlement that is for the family, so either parent can take it, and there's a period that is paid. If both parents take two months of that leave, in addition to maternity leave, then they'll get an additional two months of pay, so that leave entitlement is there whether or not they take two months each, but there's an additional two months of paid leave.

That's excellent. Is it the state that pays or the employer?

It's the state that pays.

Okay, thank you for that.

The UK has remarkably low rates of statutory maternity, paternity and shared parental pay compared to Europe.

Okay. So, we really do need something like that here to really change the game.

Alison, where, in your four asks of employers, are we actually tackling the issue of fathers?

We'd agree with you that the complexity around shared parental leave is mind boggling, and I think HR departments in many organisations have kind of devolved this to line managers and said, 'All the information is there', but actually, for line managers to work out the kind of shared maternity, shared parental leave, is extraordinarily complex. So, I think, again, with working forward, that is a conversation that needs to be had with line managers—how to explain what this means and what the money is and how it works between you and your employer.

One of the things that's coming out of the new gender pay gap regulations is exactly what you're talking about, Jenny—that organisations are recognising that rather than fiddling around the edges, we need this long-term change in terms of thinking about who a parent is and who might want flexible working arrangements or time out to care for children. So, there are a number of conversations I've seen going on with some of the larger financial institutions about paying parental leave at the same rate as maternity leave, and getting rid of the two weeks of statutory paternity pay and then leaving men, further down the years of leave, with the 13 weeks of either half pay or the bit at the end that's not paid. So, if there were a better shared parental leave system in terms of it matching maternity pay, we could solve some of these problems.

It is incredibly complex and I don't think people really understand how complex it is until they're in that situation. I would echo what Rosalind has said. It then seems to be that the employee has to go and ask a line manager who doesn't really understand it, who goes and asks HR who say, 'Well, it's all on the website.' There needs to be some kind of taking hold of this issue and making it de rigueur and that's about role models at the top end of the organisation taking that leave and making it possible.

So, do you think it's not going to happen unless the state takes a lead on this, or do you think it's possible for individual employers—larger ones, most likely—to start taking this matter seriously?

Well, I would agree with Rosalind. We've brought in a complex mix of paternity, shared parental and maternity leave that is very hard to understand. Some of which is paid at very low statutory pay rates, and some of it is paid at the enhanced rate. I think the state has a role in making that much more simple and communicating that they value people taking time out caring and bringing those skills back into the workplace. I think there is a role for the Welsh Government there in communicating that.

As for the levers in terms of the payment of parental leave and maternity leave, we don't have those levers in Wales, but we can certainly, I think, make those points.

Okay. So, there really isn't much point in doing a campaign on this issue unless we can offer people better remuneration. You know, they've got to live off something while they're—

I think the remuneration is a problem, but so is the complexity and I think so possibly—and I don't have research evidence for this—is the fact that men look around them and see what happens to women's careers if they take maternity leave and then come back on a part-time basis, and that they don't progress and that they, therefore, might not be seen as committed to the organisation as they once were, or as committed to their careers. And men don't want that happening to them; they understand that full-time presenteeism is the way to get on.

Okay. Just moving on, I wondered if either of you can shed some light on the specific problems faced by teachers. I'm surprised that education isn't able to accommodate people in part-time shared teaching arrangements, and I wondered what you think can be done on that.

Okay. In the EHRC report they talk about each sector having its own particular issues. There's no kind of blanket—these issues happen everywhere. But they have talked about teachers having problems with flexible working requests, possibly because of the way the work days are structured, and there are some recommendations around job sharing. But the Wales data is slightly less worse than the national picture in terms of the number of women.

Slightly less—?

Less worse. If I can put it like that.

But it's still not a good read, though.

No. So, we've got mothers who felt forced to leave their jobs at 7 per cent in Wales rather than the 11 per cent of the national picture. So it's not great. But again, I think a piece of work in terms of flexible working and job sharing and attachment to work and keeping people involved when they're on maternity leave is important.

So, given the challenges involved for headteachers in recruiting and retaining good teachers, it's difficult to understand why they wouldn't want to amend their arrangements to retain people.

I would agree with you. I don't think we've got any specific research that gives the answers to this question, particularly in Wales at the moment. But the gender equality review is coming up, and that can be one of the things—we'll pick up the pregnancy/maternity across the board, and there could well be some work to look in particular sectors at particular issues in relation to disrupted careers. Because that's what we're talking about.

Ros, do you come across specific examples of schools that are refusing to consider job shares or reduced hours?

There's certainly no shortage of examples of poor practice in schools, and I think there's one quite high-profile case that went to the tribunal some years back of an art teacher who was unfairly dismissed because of a pregnancy from a school in Wales. I think it raises many of the problems that exist across the board in terms of promoting flexible working and encouraging employers to actually comply with their legal obligations. Health and safety issues, women not being able to stand all day, dealing with sickness, moving to a more flexible working culture—there are some practical considerations. I'm sure these have been answered by any number of schools, but they're certainly not ones that are necessarily understood by all managers in schools.

Okay. Clearly it's something that we potentially could have more influence over, because obviously they're all employed in the public sector. So, could you both shed some light on why you think the voluntary sector is generally a more amenable place for parents to work than either the public or the private sector?

Our research findings have found that the voluntary sector was more in line with the public sector rather than the private sector. I think employers were more likely to feel they wanted to hang on to the skills and talent that they have. That could be that women are in more specialist roles than in some of the parts of the private sector, whereas, as I've discussed, with those marginal employment contracts, employers may feel that women are more replaceable if they lose them. So, it could well be that there is a better thought through understanding of recruitment, retention and progression in some of those sectors, and wanting to hang on to the skills that they've got. It could well be a difference of attitude, Jenny, in terms of understanding—

This is what we need to know, though. Is it attitudes or is it the hard-to-replace people, or—?

Or is it the fact that the voluntary sector is run by women?

Well, I don't think those questions were asked in the EHRC review, but they are good questions. The idea was to understand the extent of discrimination in relation to pregnancy and maternity, but they are very good follow-up questions, and they come back, Siân, to the cultural questions, don't they, in many respects? As I say, I think the gender equality review can pick up some of those.

Potentially the other thing is that the voluntary sector is quite closely aligned to the public sector in terms of outsourcing of contracts and things like that, and there is a link through from the equality duties from the public sector to the voluntary sector, which I think creates a framework in terms of understanding employment rights.  

Certainly, some research seems to indicate that the voluntary sector is a better place to work for parents than the public sector, even. Is that not borne out by your experience? 

In this research, it says the voluntary sector is more likely to mirror the public sector than the private sector, and that's as far as it goes. 

Well—[Inaudible.]—not surprises. 

Yes. Yes, and I can't say whether it's because it's more heavily dominated by women. If I think back to research from a long time ago around pregnancy and maternity, and women's employment rights in very male dominated occupations, they are certainly worse off there than they are in occupations where there's a much higher proportion of women, but those things can be looked at again in the context of these findings going forward. 

Okay.

Okay, I think we'll have to move on at this stage. Just one further item, which perhaps you might address in the further written submission that you'll provide, Alison, and perhaps Rosalind, and that's international comparisons and whether there are any particularly good examples internationally, perhaps not so much in terms of laws and employment rights, which are not within the province of Welsh Government, but the way that practice and relationships with employers and those matters that Welsh Government and the Welsh Assembly do have responsibility for—whether there any particular examples of good practice in that regard. 

Okay, thanks very much. We'll move on then to Janet Finch-Saunders.  

Thank you. Good morning. I've done some work since I've been an AM in terms of looking at local authorities in terms of their gender pay gap and equal pay, and I was quite shocked—the more I went into it, the more I found—where local authorities were not taking—some local authorities—their responsibility seriously. Do you believe that Welsh local authorities should have to publish their gender pay gap data in the same form and location as other organisations with more than 250 employees? And the second question will be whether you think that that figure of 250, whether that should be modified. 

Yes. [Laughter.] Yes, they should be providing gender pay gap reporting. I think there is potential to look at reporting for organisations with fewer staff, but I think it would be more important to get a more rigorous gender pay gap reporting framework in place first. And, certainly, the gap from Maternity Action's perspective is reporting on maternity retention rates. So, that's the proportion of women who were working with the employer when they were pregnant and are still in post a year after return from maternity leave. We think that would be an incredibly powerful figure in drawing employers' attention to the risks of losing women during pregnancy, maternity leave and return to work. I think it would prompt greater attention to compliance, but also I think would reduce the use of compromise agreements or pay-offs to resolve disputes as they arise. So, I think it would be relatively easy to add that into gender pay gap reporting, and I think it would be quite powerful in focusing the employers' attention.  

Why do you think there's a reticence, you know, to—? I found getting information quite difficult for a start, but then when I found that information I've been quite shocked that local authorities do have a reticence almost to adhere their own responsibilities, shall we say. How do we improve those mechanisms within local authorities? 

Well, I do think public reporting's quite powerful for these bodies. So, I think the gender pay gap reporting does force some introspection for these organisations, but I do think the maternity retention rate reporting would force a more detailed focus on pregnant women and new mothers, which is where I think a huge proportion of the gender pay gap can be traced. So, I do think those are quite powerful. And also practical support for women who might be encountering problems at work; I think that would be a useful thing to look at, because, unless women are unionised—and many are in the local authorities—they may be struggling to find advice about their situation. So, I think increasing the support provided to women to be able to raise concerns and to address them. 

Okay. So, the new UK gender pay gap reporting requirements that require all organisations of over 250 to report to the Government Equalities Office portal—private and voluntary sector organisations in Wales are covered by those, but not the public sector. We would welcome public sector organisations that want to put their data up on the GEO portal, and some organisations in Wales have chosen to do so. For instance, the Welsh universities have reported to that mechanism. 

But public sector—44 listed—bodies in Wales with 150 employees do have to have due regard to having an objective to address the gender pay gap and to publish that data, or to say why they don't think they need to have an objective, which I think still means doing the analysis; I think you have to show you don't have a problem if you're going to say, 'I'm not going to have that as one of my equality objectives'. And they are required in Wales to report that annually, together with an action plan. So, in some cases, our duty here is stronger. It also requires much more detailed information than the six figures on the Government Equalities Office portal—so, you have to report men and women by job, grade, working patterns and their contract type, which shows that combination of why women end up at the bottom end of the organisation, mostly on part-time work. Because I think one of the worries about the UK gender pay gap reporting requirements has been lots of employers saying, 'Ah, well, we just need a few more women at the top.' They don't. They need to do something about the very large number of women at the bottom who are stuck there. So, I think, yes, we'd welcome that. 

I think that the other thing that perhaps the Welsh Government could think about doing—and I know that the commission in Wales has been having a conversation—is collecting together the reported data from the public sector in Wales and putting it in one place, a bit like the portal, so that you can see and compare between organisations, and I think that would also have the effect of letting the local authorities' health boards know that we are looking for this data and we want to have it in a place where we can all see it. Now, you could start potentially with them doing the six figures that's in the GEO, the Government reporting requirements, or you could ask them to expand that and to show clearly what the causes of their gender pay gaps are by following the detail in the Welsh duty.

So, as for moving down beyond the 250 for the private sector and the voluntary sector, I think the commission's view is that we would want to see perhaps ethnicity and disability data on pay added, potentially, before we go to the lower numbers, because organisations do sometimes struggle with knowing how to do this. So, let's add in the ethnicity and disability stuff before we potentially move down. And there'll be a five-year review of the new data, the reporting requirements, at some point. 

Okay. Thanks for that. I'm afraid we need to move on. We're rapidly in danger of running out of time and we've still quite a lot to get through. Siân. Is it very brief, Bethan?

It was on your point, sorry. You said about looking at women at the top. Is it your view, though, that you do need to do things through legislation, such as quotas or having women on boards made statutory? I just wanted to ask that to get it on the record, really. Does there need to be legislation in that regard?

Okay. My personal view—so, I'm not speaking from the commission's perspective, but my personal view is that we don't want to parachute women into the top. We want to make sure the conditions of progression allow them to progress through the system and remove those barriers, yes. 

Okay. Thanks very much. Siân Gwenllian. 

Okay. I think the gender equality review is a really excellent opportunity to reconsider how the mainstreaming equality duty has or hasn't been thoroughly transversally implemented and embedded across all our policy areas. We have looked at doing this before, and now we need to look at why it perhaps hasn't turned out in the way that we anticipated, but also what is working well. So, one of the areas of focus is the new economic action plan and the new employability plan, clearly. I'm very pleased to see the economic contract in there. I think we've been talking for some time about asking people who receive Government investment to make sure there are social value spillouts from the economic investment that they receive. I think it's important that pregnancy and maternity are included within the envelope of fair work and how that's defined. The first gateway through the economic action plan is to show commitment to four aspects and then to choose one of those development aspects, but I would like to see that the Welsh Government doesn't lose any focus on the other three as well, as part of that investment.

So, there are levers here in terms of both of those plans and the employability plan, but I think the employability plan, which has a focus on health and employability and ensuring that DWP job coaches are very focused on the individual, must have that focus on the gendering of work and all the barriers that women can face in terms of attachment to the labour market, particularly around pregnancy and maternity. So, they need to be woven in and I think, as part of the gender equality review, that's a key thing to do.

So, as they stand at the moment, they're not doing enough.

As they stand at the moment, they're quite high-level. They are statements of intent with some specific actions that will be undertaken, but we don't yet know the detail of what those will look like in practice. So, there are conversations to be had, I think, with Business Wales and the business advisers about how they handle those things on the ground. The practical fallout of that will be equipping people with the knowledge to have those conversations with employers, as well as the people looking at applications for investment, and setting those tests at a decent level in terms of weightings, et cetera. So, it's all to play for. The framework is there, I think.

I think the plans create a space in which a lot of the concerns we have can be addressed—so, I think the focus on fair work, the focus on health particularly. I think the public reporting of maternity retention rates could be included in the work of the fair work board. It could be some work—which is within the competence of the Welsh Government—on health and safety for pregnant women, new mothers and breastfeeding. I think that could be incorporated into those. There's some extraordinarily poor practice that could be addressed, I think, by some work by the Welsh Government. I think there's scope for a campaign to challenge the poor culture and I think that could focus on benefits to the wider community of addressing maternity rights in the workplace and supporting women to remain in work during their childbearing years. I think that could be brought within those frameworks. Also information for employers—I think there are quite significant gaps in the information available to employers, particularly smaller employers, who are employing pregnant women and new mothers. Currently, they've got about five Government websites to look at to find out what their obligations are and I think there's scope to bring that material together in a single location. In fact, we were commissioned by the EHRC to produce an employer toolkit a few years back. Unfortunately, that's out of date, but I think resources like that are incredibly powerful and I think they can be actions that fall out of the policy frameworks.

Across the foundation sectors—care, tourism, leisure and retail—about 63 per cent of employees are women. I really welcome this focus on the foundation sectors. There is now work going on in the Wales Centre for Public Policy looking at job progression—job retention and job progression—in those sectors, but there is a high proportion of part-time work, particularly in retail and care, and, as we know, part-time work is one of those places where you're less likely to have opportunities for training and development, and all of those things will increase women's attachment to the labour market following a pregnancy and maternity. So, there are specific issues to look at within those areas.

Well, I think that goes back to the questions that I raised earlier around using the fair work board to provide a focus on the reporting of retention rates—heath and safety, particularly.

Is there anything around procurement that could be done? The Berlin example is thrown sometimes, isn't it, where they've got specific conditions—when their work's being procured by Government, they have to have a certain amount of women in the workforce and—.

I think from our perspective that's a mechanism to get public reporting of maternity retention rates, if you make that a condition of applying for or engaging in the procurement process. Similarly, having good policies and evidence of good practice on health and safety for pregnant women, new mothers and breastfeeding mothers—I think those can be incorporated into that. 

I think procurement is a lever. Again, there's lots of work going on at the moment to think about how we get better social value out of procurement. There's a number of things that need to be brought together here, Siân. There's equality, there's fair work, there are environmental pressures, and we need to make sure that it's done in a coherent way so that it works in the way that we intend. There have been, in the current procurement arrangements for the Welsh Government, some questions around, 'Have there been any discrimination cases taken against you?'—so, very high level questions, really. But I would like to see in those frameworks, 'What is your gender balance? What are your pregnancy and maternity policies? What is your gender pay gap action plan?', and ask people what they're intending to do to improve the situation, rather than what has happened in the past. And I would like to see those questions weighted. They need to have a proper weighting within how the contracts are awarded, and not just be a 'yes/no, thanks for the information' kind of approach.

Yes, perhaps you could provide some written responses to those questions, and perhaps amplify some of the other questions about the economic action plan and the employability plan in the further written evidence that you're kindly going to provide us with. We'll move on to Jenny Rathbone and some final questions on childcare.

Yes, very briefly. Clearly, one of the major problems here is the inadequacy of childcare arrangements, both workplace nurseries and general, affordable childcare. What do you think the Welsh Government's priority should be in terms of how they shape the childcare offer to enable people to retain their jobs?

I think, from Maternity Action's perspective, this is not an area where we've done a lot of work. We want women to have access to childcare, men to have access to childcare, that fits around the work that they do. But, in terms of determining the priorities for work, I don't think we're well placed to be able to comment.

Okay, thanks. Alison.

I think there needs to be some evaluation of how the arrangements have—because they've changed over time, haven't they, in terms of the number of hours, the age of the children. We've got the new recent 30 hours, I really think we need—

Well, that is only just now being piloted, so it's very, very early days.

Yes. But, over time, there have been a number of changes and I don't think we've yet assessed how they have helped women into work and have they had an effect on poverty. I note the children's commissioner's response, which is that universal childcare has more spill-over benefits than perhaps just helping women into work and alleviating poverty. It is that sense of the state taking some responsibility for children's education and becoming good citizens and improving their educational health and well-being. So, there are wider concerns, I think.

Well, there's huge market failure, because we know there's massive demand but it's simply not available. So, even at the most basic level of wraparound care to complement the free nursery education, it's almost non-existent. Where in your strategy does this fit?

The commission, I think, is keeping a close eye on what's happing in the Welsh Government in terms of the early years work, which is now a cross-cutting priority, and there is work going on to look at a holistic early years system in Wales. I think the commission needs to be alongside of that and thinking about what that looks like in terms of childcare, wraparound care, early years development, and the spinouts for women in work. So, I think there's work going on in this area. It's too difficult, at the moment, to recommend one answer.

Okay. All right. Thank you.

Okay. Well, thank you very much for coming along to give evidence to the committee this morning, and agreeing to provide further evidence in due course. You will be sent a transcript in the normal way to check for factual accuracy. Thank you very much indeed.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Okay. The committee will now break until 10:30.

Okay, welcome back to the committee, then, for item 3 on our agenda today and our second evidence session for our inquiry into pregnancy, maternity and work in Wales. I'm very pleased to welcome Catherine Fookes, director of the Women's Equality Network Wales and Cerys Furlong, chief executive of Chwarae Teg. Welcome to you both. Perhaps we might move straight to questions. I will begin by asking for an overview from you as to the issues faced by pregnant women and mothers in relation to employment—just a brief outline of the major issues as you see them. 

Do you want me to go first?

If you want to, Cerys.

I listened to some of the last session, so I think probably a lot of what Catherine and I will say will echo what Alison and Rosalind said, so I'll try not to duplicate as much as possible. There's a lot of detail in the themes that you want to pick up later that will cover some of that, but I think, generally, our concerns remain around the motherhood pay penalty that we still see, access to childcare being a barrier for women fully participating in work, and the attitudes and culture around what men perceive women are able to do, what women perceive themselves as able to do, in the workplace and how pregnancy and maternity affect that, and I think we're also keen to pick up on the role of male parents and their childcare responsibilities. Hopefully, we can cover that when we talk about childcare later.

Yes, and I think, for us, just to add that it seems there's a real dichotomy between the law as it's laid out and what employers should do and then the way women experience maternity and paternity leave—or maternity leave—and there's a cultural reason, I think, for that. What I would like to see happen in the long term is that we try and put in place either legislation—or encourage the UK Government to put in place the right legislation to change that culture. But it's not going to happen overnight and so, yes, I think there's a massive cultural change that's needed as well as the things that Cerys has raised already.

Okay. As you say, we'll come on to these matters in more detail later on. At this stage, then, could I ask you what you think might be the reasons for the disconnect found in an EHRC survey, where they found that the overwhelming majority of employers—87 per cent—felt that it was in the best interests of their organisations to support pregnant women and those on maternity leave, whereas 71 per cent of mothers reported negative or, indeed, discriminatory experiences? Would you have any sense of what lies behind those figures?

I think there's a complex range of factors, as with anything like this, and while legislation's been important to shift employers' focus onto the structural things they need in place to support women in work, it doesn't necessarily address those attitudes and behaviours. So, employers have a responsibility to make sure that there's an understanding and buy-in across their organisations, not just at the top, or within HR, or organisational development parts of the business, to support women and men to take responsibility for childcare and parental leave. Crucially, I think, they need to measure progress over time in terms of a mother's experience, and I think Alison talked earlier about that in terms of retention of women after they return from maternity leave. It seems an obvious thing to say, but a lot of organisations have men at the top as key gatekeepers, decision makers, and if we had a more equal representation of women leading and running our organisations, whether those are in the public, private or voluntary sector, then that would have an impact on the culture. I think there's still a perception that maternity and parental leave—equality legislation more broadly—can be seen as red tape still, and we need to work harder to challenge that.

What we see, through our work with employers day to day, is that still, while there might be a commitment around the principles of supporting women in work, that detailed understanding of what that means, and what that means they have to do, and what the individual's experience is, is sometimes lacking. That extends to the lack of understanding about what the negative cost of not supporting women in work is, to both that individual but also, crucially, to their business or organisation. So, it's not just one thing. It's not just about supporting women, but enabling parents, generally, to be able to take the great benefits that they can have from being hands-on, active parents, but also enabling them to access work and have all the benefits from that as well.

Okay.

Yes, it's interesting as well that the same survey found that 65 per cent of employers would like women to declare their pregnancy during recruitment. So, although the EHRC findings were that employers, yes, they said—87 per cent said—'Yes, we want to support pregnant women and get them back into the workplace,' they actually want to know—65 per cent of them want to know—whether a woman is pregnant when they do the recruitment interview, which is obviously discriminatory and can't be allowed to happen. So, it's either conscious or unconscious bias, whatever way you look at it. So, the legislation is in place, but the cultural change that employers need to go through is absolutely huge. As Cerys has said, if more businesses were run by women, that may help change things. I think it's very interesting that, in 2016-17, according to HM Revenue and Customs, only 250 men took paternity leave—took the shared parental leave element of the paternity leave. I know we're going to come on to more about actual elements of the leave. So, I think we need a huge cultural shift, because until we get more men taking that shared leave, we will still have a massive gender pay gap; we will still have employers thinking it's not normal for men to take leave, so they won't be encouraged to take leave. So, I think, in answer to your question, the reason for the disconnect is very much employers are not as far forward as the law is. They know what they've got to do, but they're not necessarily always doing it. Secondly, the culture of so few men taking this leave means that other men—. There isn't a kind of—what's the word— critical mass. And, until there are more men taking that leave, we will still get the big gender pay gap problems later on as well.

Okay. Thanks for that. Jenny.

I completely agree with you on that latter point, but I wanted to ask you, really, about what we can do about the widespread flouting of the law, even amongst employment lawyers. One of the mothers who came to our stakeholder event was an employment lawyer, and she recounted how she had been asked—or as an aside, they said, 'The trouble is, if we give you a better-paid job, you always go off on maternity leave'. It's unbelievable. If even the people who are supposed to be policing the situation are flouting the law, what are we going to do about this?

Yes, good question. I don't have all the answers, but I think Sweden—. I know it's one of the questions later, so I don't know if you want me to save that until later, but I think Sweden have got some answers on how we should deal with that.

I think one of the problems is that it's costly to lodge complaints, even though tribunal fees have recently been waived again. The onus is on the individual to take that action and, naturally, any of us would feel concern about raising issues with our employer of such a fundamental nature—exactly as you've described. We hear it all of the time. It's particularly bad in the private sector, which won't come as any surprise. We might want to look again at the legislation and check if more could be done, but that can only get us so far, really. It's the culture change, the normalisation of the fact that women do want to return to work after maternity. Just because people have children—men or women—just because they want to work part time or flexibly, it doesn't reflect on their career ambitions or commitment to their job. So, those are the kinds of attitudes that we need to challenge.

Catherine, perhaps, at this stage, you could briefly enlighten us, then, as to the Swedish approach.

So, in Sweden, you get 64 [correction: 68.5] weeks, and, in the UK, we get 50 weeks of shared parental childcare. Three months of the childcare in Sweden is available to the man and it's non-transferable, so a much higher percentage of men take up that time of parental leave. It's also incredibly flexible, the leave. You can take it in blocks, you can go back to work part-time and take part of your maternity or paternity leave while you're working part-time, and it's just totally flexible. During the first three months of the new baby's life, the father can be at home for 10 days.FootnoteLink The interesting thing is, as well, that it's not the employers that pay for maternity and paternity leave in Sweden, it's the Swedish Social Insurance Agency. So, that, I think, makes it easier, doesn't it, because it's not the employers that are having to pay to foot the bill; it's an insurance administration, which, presumably, is paid for out of general taxation. I think Swedish taxes are much higher than ours. So, they've got a culture, but it has taken years. It hasn't happened overnight.

I think it's about the parental leave and it's about the fact that, when they go back to work, the childcare is offered from six [correction: 12] months to everybody, irrespective of whether you work or not, so there's no—. I think it's the children's commissioner who has mentioned that she would like the childcare offer that the Welsh Government is currently working on to extend to non-working parents. That will help them get back to work and also remove the problem of—. A lot of women, we've heard anecdotally—and I think you heard at your forum—feel forced to quit their jobs when they're pregnant, so then they have a double whammy of not being able to go back to work for their job, but also not getting the childcare offer as well. So, it's the two things, I think, that Sweden do really well.

Yes, okay. Catherine, I'd like to ask one more question now and then we'll move on to childcare and Jenny Rathbone, rather earlier than we did in the first session. But, yes, the final question from me for this part of the issue is on universal credit. Do you have concerns that universal credit could adversely impact on mothers? And, if so, would you offer anything as to what might be done to mitigate those effects?

I think it's probably worthy of greater scrutiny in and of itself, because it is such a significant and important issue. You could have an inquiry on universal credit and there would be plenty to talk about, but I'll try and cover some of the key issues.

We're concerned that it risks leaving women, particularly, worse off than under the previous system, and it risks exacerbating the economic inequality that women face anyway. Evaluation has not been particularly extensive or adequate in terms of understanding how universal credit impacts on different groups, including women, or where there are regional geographic differences, and I think we can make some reasonable assumptions around a different impact in devolved areas compared to other parts of the UK. So, we're concerned about the complexity of it. We're particularly concerned about who receives the credit and the fact that women are disadvantaged because of that, and that the funding doesn't go to the main carer in the household. So, there's almost too much to cover, but summarised by, 'Yes, we think it will have a disproportionately negative impact on women in Wales'.

Okay. And, in terms of what might be done to mitigate the effects, is anything coming readily to mind?

Well, short of scrapping the whole thing, which, clearly, is not going to happen, a significant commitment to evaluation of the scheme and understanding the impact on different groups is absolutely essential. There are a number of detailed areas in terms of how claimants can access childcare costs. All of those things could be looked at. So, we accept that the scheme is here and unlikely to change, but I think we could and should put pressure on for a greater understanding of what that means for individuals. The rhetoric in terms of, 'It shouldn't have a disproportionate impact on women' seems clearly untrue to us, so I think pressure should certainly be put on to understand that and change it. 

Absolutely. One of the aims of both our organisations is that women can lead independent lives, and this new—the way that universal credit is now paid is definitely not increasing the ability of women to live independent lives. One of our asks is that there should be an action plan put in place by Welsh Government—produce an action plan to mitigate the impact of welfare reforms. So, we need to look first, as Cerys has said, at what the problems are and then put in place an action plan to make sure that we can check the impact of those in terms of poverty, housing, social care and childcare. I think, also, that needs to look at the intersectional needs of women—women who've experienced domestic violence, BME women, migrant women, and so on.

I think that's a really important point about financial dependence and the potential for abuse of both the system and relationships. So, where a woman is dependent on her partner financially and that person is the head of the household who receives the payment, we have the potential to further exacerbate the problem that already exists.

Okay. Thanks for that, then. We'll move on to Jenny, then, and childcare issues. Jenny Rathbone.

The Women's Equality Network is recommending that the Welsh Government provides guaranteed flexible, affordable and subsidised childcare for all parents from the age of six months. That's obviously entirely desirable. The trouble is, it's all about money. So, the offer that we have is 30 hours of free childcare for 48 weeks of the year for people where at least one parent is in work. Why do you think we could possibly deliver what you want, given the general restriction on public funding at the moment?

Well, I think it's for us, as an NGO working in this area, to try and be bold and suggest things that would really help. If we didn't suggest things because they cost money, we'd be really limiting ourselves and not doing Welsh Government and others around this table a service, I think. The experience in Sweden shows that the way forward is to offer free [correction: highly affordable, universal]  childcare from a much younger age, because then you will get women back to work, and then you will reduce the gender pay gap further down the line, and then you will also get more men taking paternity leave, and have a more equal society.

Well, we know it's perfectly possible for the state to provide childcare, because in the second world war there was no difficulty getting childcare, because women were needed in the factories. But we are where we are and the Welsh Government has limited tax-raising powers. So, what do you think that—? What can we do now to improve the situation for parents wanting to return to work after having a baby?

Do you want me to—

Yes.

—make a couple of suggestions? I think one thing is to commit to not being completely wedded to the current offer. Just because something's in a manifesto doesn't mean that it will necessarily roll out in the most effective way. So, one of the key concerns that we have is the support that you offer to mothers, which Catherine was talking about a moment ago, at that point at which they want to return to work. That's not when their child is three and four, but when their child is one and two, and, at the moment, the childcare offer that we referred to, the up-to-30-hours that we're working towards, doesn't address that.

The other key issue is around the sufficient flexibility of it. So, the feedback that we hear consistently is around the accessibility of of wraparound childcare. So, I can talk about my own example. My three-year-old started nursery in January. I can't get her a wraparound place until September, so we have to pick her up at 3 o'clock every day until September because I can't access any other childcare. That's fine for me—I'm a middle class, well-paid professional and I've got family nearby so that we can support each other. Many people are not in that position. So, I also think it's key to think about, if this offer—. It's great to have an offer that's about wanting to enable women particularly to get back to work, but what do we mean by—? We think it should be targeted at those who need it most. How we define that is quite complex, but I think that should be the aspiration of Government, and I think they should commit that if it's not doing that, they change it. So, we're anxiously looking at the evaluation that I think Arad Research are doing that at the moment to see what comes out of that.   

The FE evidence talks about the best outcomes being from integrated, high-quality childcare, so how much do you think that should be a focus, because some people can afford to pay—your own example—and others clearly can't, but we want everybody to get that nursery entitlement? To some extent, the question in my mind is why has there been such market failure, because you'd think it wouldn't be that difficult to provide wraparound care, really? Why is it that primary schools, unless they're completely boxed in physically, are not able to extend their offer even if they have to charge?  

I think there is a range of issues. One is cost, so they're getting £4.50 an hour under the scheme. So, my understanding is that take-up of that is still pretty good, so there is a desire within the sector to step up to be able to offer those 30 hours. There's also geographical difference because of the way it's administered by local government. So, in Cardiff, for example, as a parent whose kids go to school in Cardiff, I'm aware that they're looking at how they roll out the 30 hours and want to focus it on the southern arc of the city. Now, we will all have views on whether that's a good or a bad thing, but that's a local decision. A different council in a different area might have different priorities. That means that you've potentially got not a universal service that performs consistently for parents, and, clearly, there are good things about that because the needs of parents and families in rural areas will be very different to those in urban areas.

But I think for me personally and for us as an organisation, it's about recognising there is limited resource from Government, and targeting it at those for whom access to affordable flexible childcare is the primary barrier for them getting back into work. So, at the moment, I'm not sure the offer as it stands does that, but we await the evaluation.     

Okay, thank you for that. Do you want to add anything to that, Catherine? 

Yes, I would just add that, as I mentioned earlier, it's about gradual change, isn't it? Okay, our long-term aim is for free universal childcare from six months, but, for now, if there's a way of changing things—you could go, for example, to two years instead of three years. You could do what Cerys has suggested, which is very sensible, which is targeting those families that need it most, rather than women who can afford to pay for it themselves. 

Another thing that I would like to encourage, which costs nothing, really, is that Welsh Government lead the way, and in terms of ministerial paternity leave and maternity leave—take the leave that you're entitled to even if you're a Minister, because we saw a Minister in Westminster recently whose wife was pregnant saying, 'I can't possibly take paternity [correction: shared parental] leave—I'm a Minister', and the Radio 5 presenter—I don't know if you all saw the clip—was saying, 'That's shocking; why can't you take paternity [correction: shared parental] leave? Even if you are a Minister, you're the one putting in place the legislation and launching the new campaign, but you're not taking your leave.' And I think we here, in the Welsh Assembly—I like to think we do things differently in Wales, and it would be amazing if AMs and Ministers could lead by example. That does a lot to change the culture. 

Okay. Bethan. 

I just want to ask a question based on your view on the childcare offer. Obviously, we've got the new framework Bill, and it will be scrutinised appropriately, but within that Bill is the outline as to who will receive that offer—written into the Bill. So, I was just wondering whether you were intending, therefore, to make amendments to that framework Bill, to propose some of that which you're saying today, be it that it should be targeted to those who are most in need, or be it to target different types of age groups, so that we can have that debate there. Because what I find most frustrating as spokesperson is that we haven't yet seen the results of the pilots and we are being expected to put this Bill forward. And I don't feel, actually, that I have all the information to hand to be able to do that. So, I'm just wondering whether you're thinking that this Bill is the place to have that discussion, because the evaluation will take place in October—the Bill is going through now. So, how are you going to approach this?

I think you've probably answered your own question. We agree with you and I think that it is really challenging. We can have a principled position about wanting to target resources at those who we think need it most, or for those whom we think face the most barriers to work, but we would want to see that robust evidence before—. Otherwise, you're potentially moving from one imperfect system to another. So, I think it's a challenge, but perhaps Catherine and I together can commit to going to think about what potential amendments we could put forward. 

Definitely. Yes, I think that's a really good idea. 

Okay. Well, sticking with Bethan, then, we will move on to discrimination and unfair treatment. 

I think we've both hinted that we probably agree that the public sector has a responsibility to lead the way. I know there's going to be talk about the gender pay gap. Certainly, we would say that that is one way in which the public sector could lead the way, and at the moment they're not, universally. I think, while there can be a better understanding of the legalities and responsibilities on employers within the public sector compared to the private sector, that doesn't necessarily always translate into better behaviours or attitudes. And we still hear some pretty poor stories in parts of the public sector. So, there's probably nothing new to say that we haven't mentioned in terms of how we address that culture and behaviour. Our work directly in the private sector and the public sector is exactly what that's there to do—to support them to make that shift within an organisation, to think about how embedding equality and diversity into their structures and cultures can be a positive impact on—if it's the private sector—their bottom line, as much as their productivity, and their staff retention. And that goes for the public sector as well. And there are some really, really good examples. There is an organisation called the Retreats Group in Pembrokeshire who recently became an exemplar employer through our Agile Nation scheme. And through introducing agile working, they reduced their staff turnover from 25 per cent to 4 per cent within 12 months.

So, practical support can really enable culture change. But you can only do so much, and it would be remiss to say, I guess, that a lot of that support is because we have European structural fund funding to do it. So, there is still a concern about what happens after Brexit in terms of the on-the-ground support that organisations like mine and others are able to offer businesses and public sector organisations to shift not just their thinking but their behaviour. 

Well, I think Welsh Ministers, and we in Wales, could call for changes to the current UK shared parental leave system that we've talked about, because what we need to do is better incentivise fathers to take up that shared leave. I think, also, you've talked about the support, and specialist support for women—I'm not sure what the answer is there because we do now have the—. Financial aid is now back to help people to go to tribunals, but what we could do is require employers in Wales to report back, when they do their equality impact assessment, on their staff retention figures post maternity leave, because I think that gives you a really good indicator of whether they are meeting the legislation, just kind of adhering to it, or whether they're really embracing it, if you see what I mean. I think that would could really help.

Absolutely. I think job share is incredibly important. I think what we could do with is—. Again, we could lead the way here at the Assembly, and I know the expert panel on electoral reform has recommended job sharing for Assembly Members. I think that would be brilliant and would get more women here. Although we've got about 42 [correction: 43] per cent women in the Assembly, it would be great to have—. We're aiming at 50:50 representation. So, job sharing is really important, and I don't know if we could have a law put in place saying that when you advertise jobs, it must say 'job sharing', or if that is already a requirement—I'm sorry, I've got a bit of a blank there. But I think that job sharing is really, really important and flexible working is absolutely crucial. Again, something they do incredibly well in Sweden—you can take your maternity or paternity leave and work part-time at the same time and spread it out even longer to suit your childcare and so on.

We can look at that, legally, and get a note afterwards.

I think it's critical—agile, flexible working—because it's not just about enabling women to take part in work, but it's actually about improving productivity in the workplace. So, we've got some fantastic examples through our work with businesses across Wales of—I'll give you one, and I think it's from an organisation in Swansea, which was expanding and was going to spend a significant amount of money on building new office space to house their new staff. Working with us—we introduced more flexible, agile working—they didn't have to spend that money. They had a positive impact on staff morale and their productivity, but also they didn't have to incur the capital costs because they were using their space better. So, it's not just about the equality angle; it's also about the business productivity angle.

Great.

Okay. Thank you for that. Diolch yn fawr. And Jenny Rathbone.

We've already discussed the need to really change the conversation about fathers. I'm happy to take further ideas on how we can really start to change the conversation on that, because that seems to me absolutely key to shifting the culture. Women are discriminated against because it's assumed that women will do the heavy lifting on childcare and if we could make it that everybody who becomes a parent has to have responsibilities on childcare—. How can we change that?

It's one practical thing we ought to consider and, again, it's something that the UK Government would need to lead on. At the moment, lots of employers offer enhanced maternity pay, so women can expect six weeks at 90 per cent of their salary, followed by the statutory payments of £139-something a week thereafter. For men who want to take that initial two-weeks paternity leave, they're immediately paid at the statutory rate. So, men often say, 'Well, I'm not going to take it because of the financial penalty', which, ironically, women experience throughout their lives. So, I think it's reasonable to—. We would certainly support higher paternity pay levels, especially at that early stage, because it's crucial that the father and the mother see that there's a responsibility on both of them, and if they need that nudge to do it, which is taking away that financial penalty that they have, then I think that's a good way to—

I'm sure we'd support that too, but, unfortunately, that's not a devolved matter, so—.

One of the things we've suggested is that fathers should have access to 12 weeks of non-transferable paternity leave at 90 per cent of their salary— i.e. pretty much equalising the offer. I know it's not in your gift, but I think we need to be lobbying Westminster about that and then lead the way.

We could ask Welsh Government and local government to publish how many of their employees take up shared parental leave. And if the take-up is low, which we might expect it to be, then ask the question, 'What more as employers should our public services in Wales be doing to encourage men to take that leave?' So, if the offer's there, we should be using that.

Yes, it's a really good idea, Cerys. And if we're going to be looking at the national indicators at any time, that would be a really good one to add. Staff retention, but maybe not just for public sector, but also the private sector after maternity/paternity leave.

Okay, just focusing on something that we do have devolved powers over, which is the deal for teachers who become parents and the difficulties that teachers seem to have negotiating job shares or flexible working. Not so much flexible working, because if you're going to be teaching a class, you've got to be there, but a reduction in hours to make it more doable with other responsibilities. And I just wondered why you think that the education system appears to be inflexible on this.

I'm going to say I don't have any information on that with me. So that's not something I can answer, Jenny, but I don't know if Cerys can.

Not from any particularly informed position, but I think we could probably make some assumptions. Despite the fact that teaching is a very female-dominated profession, still, in some of the positions of authority, you will find men. So, there's a higher proportion of male headteachers compared to the number of men teaching in the classroom. So, I think there are, again, some cultural issues that probably need to be addressed. There's absolutely no reason, structurally, why job share shouldn't be an option for teachers. My daughter had a job-share class teacher. It was great, because she had the best of two different types of teachers with skills and interests that she could access. So, I think, we need to probably shine a light on some of those positive stories in a better way.

But, I suppose I have one nagging thing that I have no evidence for: teaching is a very female-heavy profession still, and I don't want to do anything that would encourage the perception that women only should take on the caring responsibilities. So, whatever we do needs to be mindful of that.

Okay. Is this a role for governing bodies, for example, to ensure that their school is offering good parental leave? 

Yes, that's a good idea.

Yes. Most governing bodies adopt their local authority's standard policies on matters like this. So, you could start with the WLGA and work downwards from there.

Okay, thank you for that. How well do you think the voluntary sector compares with the public and private sectors in terms of their embracing of parental responsibilities?

Anecdotally, I think it's probably better in the public sector, but I don't have the evidence to share on that. I think it's just anecdotal for me that you get more support in going back to work when you're in the public sector, but I don't know if Cerys has got more—.

Again, I don't have evidence on that. It would be interesting, as we see the years roll on of gender pay-gap reporting, we can start to pick apart some of those differences. But, certainly, in my experience, you tend to see, in the voluntary sector, quite progressive policies around supporting their workforce and their employees—parental leave being one of the ways in which they do that. I would say that the voluntary sector is probably aligned with the public sector on that. 

Obviously, the figures for 25-year-olds who actually are chased out of their jobs illegally are pretty horrific. How much do you think that this is a particular issue for those, because of their age, who are in lower grade positions and are, therefore, in a much more difficult position to assert their rights? And how do we get around that problem?

Are you referring to the change in minimum wage at that age? Is that the sort of behaviour that you're—

It was just one of the points, I think, that WEN submitted, that under-25-year-olds reported that—

Yes, the EHRC report found that under-25-year-olds suffer the worst in terms of discrimination. They feel that they're not willingly supported by employers and they feel increased pressure to resign. But, again, I think that's probably a cultural thing, that they're younger, that they don't have the confidence and they perhaps don't know their rights, whereas a more mature woman who's been in the workforce for longer has seen people go off on maternity leave and knows their rights. So, I think it's around that. It's about the culture, again, and making sure—. A lot of this comes down to education. A lot of the remit of this committee, I think, could be—. The culture could be changed by going into schools and really exploring gender, healthy relationships, sexism, feminism, and all these things. It's something that we work with Professor Emma Renold from Cardiff University on, going to schools with our AGENDA programme. I'm not saying that will solve maternity leave and discrimination against women who are pregnant, but I'm saying that any help, giving women and girls advice, knowledge and confidence about what their rights are and what they should expect is a really good thing and could help them.

I think there are some positive signs as well. There was a report around millennials in the workplace, I think it was done by PwC, and they showed, for the first time, that millennials valued flexibility over rates of pay in terms of the types of workplaces they wanted to work in. So, that's encouraging in terms of, you know, employers will be looking at how they attract talent from the next generation. If that's what is attracting bright young people into organisations, then employers will have to respond to it. 

I know, Catherine, you've already shared some examples of good practice as far as Sweden is concerned, but if either of you are able to provide in writing examples of countries that do exhibit good practice on these issues, particularly with regard to devolved responsibilities, then that would be very useful. We'll move on now to Janet Finch-Saunders.

Thank you, Chairman. As regards local authorities, do you believe they should have to publish their gender pay gap data in the same form and location as other organisations?

Yes.

In short, yes.

So, why do you think we're still having this argument?

There's no reason why they should be excluded. I think perhaps it stems from a misunderstanding of equal pay and the gender pay gap. Councils have done a lot of work on thinking about equal pay over the last decade, but that's not the same. Some councils have reported voluntarily, but there's absolutely no reason why the rest of them shouldn't, and I think it's really important that they do.

I know, because I've done a lot of work on the outstanding equal pay claims, and they're coming up to date now, but it's been horrendous trying to get them to actually—. People have been left waiting for sums of around £800 for eight or nine years. In my own consistency, I've fought them rigorously, and I've challenged here in the Senedd about the numbers over the years. They have come down significantly, but it shouldn't have taken us to start banging the drum for those women to have had that money that was rightfully theirs. And the legal costs associated that the local authorities have paid, rather than give these women the money that they're due, it shocked me when I did more work on it, so I would be pushing to see this. Now, what about the 250 employees figure?

We're quite keen to see that lowered to 100 because in Wales we have a huge number of SMEs, small and medium-sized enterprises, and I think it would really work to have that threshold lowered, absolutely.

We agree with that figure as well. I think that's a reasonable figure to which it should come down, and I expect that it will over time. I think, just to go back to local government, even when they've corrected those equal pay claims, I think, unless they commit to things like gender pay gap reporting, it won't address the culture and behaviour and we'll be back having to fight the same battles around equal pay. We know that we have a predominance of male chief executives, male senior teams, so we could probably anticipate what some of the results of those pay gaps would be, but it's really important that they do it. Also to say that the offer has been made to them from organisations like mine, and no doubt others, to support them in doing that.

I think what astounded me was the inconsistency. Some authorities were very good, but some had hundreds and hundreds of outstanding equal pay claims that were seven or eight years, nine years in some instances. So, I'm pretty keen to ensure—with my role as a spokesperson on this as well—to ensure that local authorities do. 

They have a really big commitment as employers in their regions and areas, not just around levels of pay, but in terms of the types of roles. I always say to people, if you're not sure what to do, go and work, if you can, for a local authority for a while because it's a great way to experience a range of public services. But they can still be very traditional and gender stereotyped in terms of the types of—I've never seen a female binman still, and I've just called it a 'binman'.  

You see them out in Spain quite regularly. 

Waste collector.

Exactly, yes, 'waste collector'. So, they have a responsibility as large employers in parts of Wales to promote opportunities to men and women. 

Absolutely, and I also wanted to mention it made me think about gender-blind recruitment, because I think if local authorities lead the way on that—. I heard a really interesting example the other day of an orchestra that did auditions blind and that way they ended up with a higher percentage of black and minority ethnic participants in the orchestra. I think we need to do the same because there is unconscious bias and we all know that. No matter how into equalities we all are sitting around this table, you can't remove that. I think local authorities could do a lot by leading on this and doing gender-blind recruitment, and especially for the higher positions. That will then get more women into positions of power. I think only 18 per cent of council leaders in Wales are women and we definitely need to change that. 

That doesn't help the argument of them actually trying for the job in the first place. It may be that the interview is gender blind, but then the women coming forward might still not be there. So, how do you change that? 

Yes. That's a good question. [Laughter.] That's put me on the spot. I think it's all about confidence, isn't it, and encouragement. I think Cerys's amazing work with Chwarae Teg and Agile Nation and the mentoring that you do, encouraging people to go for jobs—we've got our own political and public life mentoring scheme now to encourage women working in councils, some of them work in local authorities, to give them the skills they need and the confidence they need to apply for those positions. It's difficult, but again, it's a slow cultural change. 

It has to start with an awareness of what the problem is. So, for those organisations who are committed to looking at where women don't progress through the organisation, once they know that they can think about how they address it. To give you an example, we've been doing some work with South Wales Police, who recognised a number of years ago, as many police forces did after the Macpherson report, that they had to do a lot to increase diversity at the intake. But because people stay in the police for 30 or 40 years, it takes a long time for that diversity to filter through. They particularly recognised they had a problem with women progressing above chief officer level. Because of the rigidity of the national police frameworks, in terms of progression within those roles, they weren't able locally to flex that. But what they were able to do was identify a cohort who they felt were suitable candidates who weren't self-selecting, who weren't putting their hand up, and then put support from us in place to work with that group of women who then successfully went on to be promoted into roles. So, it was firstly identifying them, then giving them the confidence and the skills to be able to excel in what was quite a rigid recruitment framework. 

Okay. Thanks very much for that. Siân Gwenllian. 

Well, I think it is important that we have leadership from the top, and I was particularly pleased to see a reference from the First Minister to ensuring that commitments in the economic action plan, within the employability plan and other places actually deliver on the rhetoric. Because I think that's the thing that really tires women—we've said all the right things, and nobody these days is going to stand up in the Chamber and disagree, but will they commit to the actions that need to take place to get us to where we want to be? So, I think it's about actually delivering on that. I think the gender equality review can be and should be a really good opportunity. I listened to some of the responses from Alison, but it's about making sure that that's not lip service, that it doesn't just sit where equality sits but goes right across the Government. I mean, all I can say so far on the limited work that's started is that it is being taken very seriously in Government. That's my perception. I think it's going to be quite challenging to do—there's an awful lot of work to do—but we welcome the commitment.

Yes, the same; we welcome the commitment. I hope there's not so much review and more action. I've already made that comment privately to Cerys, and I know she's really committed to it resulting in action. The review is, of course, important, but the actions that come out of it are much more important. We do have the legislation in place in Wales, and I think we have the opportunity to really lead the way in terms of gender equality. Yes, it is depressing, Siân, to be sitting here talking about it still. We're also bringing out—. WEN and Chwarae Teg and Welsh Women's Aid, all of us together, are bringing out a policy report next—. No, 2 May. It's not next week. Very soon. And that also addresses some of the issues, and gives some really strong policy recommendations and targets. In fact, we're working with you, Siân, on that. So, yes. I think it's an important thing to do the review, but we must see action in some areas. I think there are easy things that we could do, like setting targets, quotas and the job sharing thing. These aren't necessarily things that have to cost a lot of money, but they're totemic issue that if we can put in place sooner rather than later, we're leading the way and we're showing the rest of the employers in Wales what can be done. We're leading by example.

Do we need a Minister of women?

I'd quite like to see a Minister for women, yes, a Minister for women and equalities, because I think Julie James is absolutely brilliant, but she also is Leader of the House and Chief Whip, and I think it would be good to have—. I know most other Parliaments do have a Minister for women and equalities.

And, more importantly, a national action plan for women, because it a cross-departmental field, obviously. But having that action plan—is that something that could come out of this gender review?

Yes.

Okay, good.

But I think it's important to say something positive as well. A test that Catherine and I and others always put to ourselves is: it's great that we feel that there is momentum around these issues at the moment, and there are strong voices and role models in all political parties in Government and in organisations like ours, but if those individuals move on and fall away, will the reforms that we would like to see stand the test of time? That's the test that we will put on ourselves.

I think there needs to be—. I think they're not. I would like to see more. On the employability plan, when I first looked at it, I did a quick search in the document for 'gender' and 'women' and that kind of thing, and it featured very little. I think we do need to have much more of a focus in there on women and using the employability plan to, for example, address the gender pay gap and address getting women into careers like construction and engineering and so on.

I think there's a lot of positive stuff in both, and I think they do represent a bit of a shift. I think the proof, as ever, will be in the pudding. So, for example, the economic contract requires those receiving public funds to demonstrate fair work. The definition of fair work has not yet been agreed, to some frustration. And if that doesn't adequately address gender, then maybe there will need to be more specific actions included that do focus on gender. But I think that there's still a desire that fair work should have that kind of equality focus, but there's more work that needs to be done by the fair work board on that.

Well, I think the focus on the foundation sectors could and should be beneficial. I mean, just in terms of, for example, tackling the lack of adequate care provision or poor working terms and conditions in those areas—that may start to address some of the issues we've already talked about around maternity, paternity and parental leave. But again, it's early days. We were vocal in campaigning for a shift away from the focus on the previous priority sectors, which were all very traditionally male-dominated sectors and followed a kind of economic understanding that was very traditional and hadn't necessarily resulted in a significant shift or change to the Welsh economy. So, I think this is an opportunity to look at things differently, but it's very early stages.

Catherine. 

I don't have a comment on that, thank you.

No. I'm not aware of consistent availability of any support for women returning to work. It's a discussion I had with colleagues earlier this week. Some people find my organisation or others, or a sympathetic ear in their trade union. Many women don't have that, so there's a lack of consistency around that. I think there are opportunities to think about the access points that women who are either preparing to go on maternity leave or preparing to return to work—how could we provide them with information and support at those stages. It doesn't have to be complex, but it could point them in the direction of EHRC or other organisations to know their basic rights, to know what they can ask for or about, and that's not consistent or necessarily available at all.

It's also about employers treating, I think, their employees who want to return to work or go on maternity leave with real respect and including them still in the team. That's something, certainly—. I was on maternity leave 14 years ago for the first time and I didn't get that feeling. I was incredibly nervous going back to work; I hadn't seen or heard from anyone in my team for the whole nine months I was off, and it felt absolutely terrifying, to be honest, to go back to work. And, so, it's not only about careers advice but it's about employers making you feel you're still part of that team. And I know a lot of employers do now have a day when you come in, and things have progressed, and you keep in touch perhaps more with your boss, but I'm not sure that every employer does that and that's something, certainly, that Wales could look at encouraging to happen.

I wanted to just briefly talk—. I think Cerys has probably got more knowledge on this than me, but just in terms of the maternity pay—. Sorry—the childcare offer should definitely go to self-employed mothers as well, and I'm not entirely sure that it does at the moment—it doesn't. And I think that's a really important point that I actually wanted to make earlier, and it kind of fits under this. Thank you. 

I think self-employment's a really important thing for us to think much more deeply about, because for some women, as with men, it's an active choice, and for many others it isn't. We don't have data on that—or not to that sort of level of detail or granularity—but I hear often of women who have chosen to become self-employed because they could not get the sufficient flexibility or progression in the workplace that they were returning to. So, I think there's a question about whether self-employment is always a choice, is it the right choice, where it is, how can we support women to still progress and thrive, and not feel isolated. It's quite a complex issue. I'm sure there are things that the employability plan can do to support, but we're certainly not talking about a uniform group of women, men or anyone when we talk about the self-employed. It's quite complex.

Diolch.

Well, Catherine and Cerys, thank you both very much for coming along to give evidence to the committee this morning. You will be sent a transcript to check for factual accuracy. Thank you very much. Diolch yn fawr.

We've reached item 4 on our agenda today and the third evidence session for our inquiry. I would very much like to welcome Bethan Darwin, partner in Thompson Darwin Law, Emma Webster, joint chief executive officer and senior solicitor with Your Employment Settlement Service, and James Moss, partner in Slate Legal. Welcome to you all. Thanks for coming along to give evidence today. Perhaps I might get our questions under way with a general question, really, in terms of an overview of the issues faced by pregnant women and mothers in relation to employment. What do you think the main issues are, in brief? Who would like to start?

I don't mind. I'll go first.

Emma, yes.

I think that there is a huge cultural problem still of a continuing perception that mothers and mothers-to-be are a problem for the workforce and that, as soon as they start work, they are seen as a potential threat, as opposed to an asset. I think that that is continuing. I think then the problem is that people don't necessarily have an understanding of their rights, and that goes on both sides, where the employer and employee don't necessarily understand their rights. Whilst there's a lot of information out there, there isn't actually a lot of access to good advice, affordable advice, for both small employers and employees as individuals.

Then, there's also a difficulty, I think, at the other end of enforcing their rights. It's again a lack of advice. The lack of access to good legal advice means that it's very difficult for people to enforce their rights. So, once they've been discriminated against, women who are at a very vulnerable stage in their working lives aren't able to enforce their rights. The waiving of fees is a good thing, but it's still the case that, before the fees were brought in, only 3 per cent of women were bringing claims. So, it's not like there's suddenly going to be a huge amount of claims being brought. The tribunal system is a difficult one to access if you are in a vulnerable position. Deadlines are very tight and there isn't, again, access to legal advice to support you through that process, and I think that causes difficulties. It also means employers feel that they can act with impunity. So, I think those are the issues.

And then, I think, on the return to work, there's the lack of flexibility and flexible working and, certainly, the lack of an ability on both sides, I think, to have constructive conversations about flexible working. I think a lot of women will, perhaps, approach the conversation in quite a confrontational way because they're feeling quite vulnerable, and then, if an employer can't, even for very good reason, accommodate the flexible working request, it can lead to a real breakdown in the relationship. So, I think that's a really crucial time—that return to work when you've been absent for a year. Everyone's feeling a bit on tenterhooks, and I think it often means that there's a clash at that stage. So, I think a bit of education on both sides about how to have conversations that will arrive in a better outcome would be helpful. That's my starting point.

That's very useful, Emma. Thanks very much. James, Bethan, would you have anything to add?

Well, I agree with everything that Emma said. I think I would just add that, going into specifics, one of the main issues facing potential claimants who've faced pregnancy and maternity discrimination is the tight time limit, and the fact that it doesn't recognise that the potential claimant is not usually in a good position, a good situation, to actually take the time to complete the claim in a very tight timescale. We'd definitely support one of the recommendations from the Fawcett Society, which is to increase the time limit for bringing claims to six months rather than the current three. We think that that would help alleviate that situation.

In addition, one of the other points we'd definitely support is the reintroduction of the discrimination questionnaire procedure. It's something that disappeared back in 2014 without any real reason, as far as I'm concerned, but it was something that was very, very useful, a really useful tool in the armoury of potential claimants, because one of the main issues they have is proving the case. For discrimination issues, it's very hard, often, to—. Witnesses often don't want to come forward, the information you need to prove your case is very hard to come by, and the questionnaire procedure used to assist massively in that regard, because when an employer failed to provide a response within time or was evasive, the tribunal could infer discrimination from that, and that was very helpful for claimants. I think if we could at all look at reintroducing that, that would be excellent news for claimants everywhere, and for justice generally.

Okay.

What I'm going to add is actually from a non-employment law element, because the evidence that we're giving here or have given so far this morning, from an employment lawyer's point of view, is all about claims and litigious solutions to the problem: raising a claim, how to bring a claim and how to enforce your rights. I think a big problem is just acknowledging, for employer and employee alike, that things have changed if you come back. You've been out of the business for a year or less; things have moved on in your absence.

I think a big thing of it is trying to find a solution that doesn't involve litigation—full and frank conversations before people go on maternity leave about what happens when they come back, and recognising that, actually, it is different, and how do you accommodate those differences to avoid having to go to litigation in the first place? Because, frankly, even though we're employment lawyers and that's how we earn our living, everybody has lost if the solution is through tribunal action. Positions are hardened, it costs a lot of money, it's very negative, it's very hard work and very damaging to your psyche. So, really, I think the thing is: how do you change it before it even gets to the point of tribunal claims? How do you alter that? Altering that is a major shift in culture, with a particular emphasis, I think, on men taking up shared parental leave, which we talked about outside. That is, really, the major shift that is needed so that, actually, we are out of work. That's the answer to the problem.

And I would wholly support the fact that litigation—. I mean, I work for a charity where our strapline is 'life's too short to litigate'. We don't think it's the answer and, actually, we've just been doing a joint project with Maternity Action—I know you heard from Ros Bragg this morning—where we have been supporting women to have pragmatic conversations with their employers in order to resolve the situation, and we have done that, I would say, in the vast majority of those cases. So, we've given the women advice, but we've also helped them have conversations and coached them in conversations with their employers so that they can solve the problems and because, so often, everybody is scared. The employers are scared of saying the wrong thing, and then therefore make, quite frequently, paternalistic assumptions. The number of women I know who've wanted to go back to work full time, and the assumption has been that they want to go back to work part time, or they've been put on a sort of side track—the mummy track—despite the fact that they're very, very happy to come back and work full time and are often the main breadwinner for the family. And there is often that assumption made. So, I think there has to be the ability for everybody to feel happy about having a conversation without the idea that there are going to be these huge amounts of negative litigious repercussions. 

Truthfully, by the time people get to me—I don't know about James, possibly less with Emma—by the time they come to me to ask for advice, it's too late; the relationship has broken down. And, actually, what they're asking me by the time they get to see me is, 'How do I get a pay-off?' It's actually not about solving the problem or changing the work-life balance, or achieving greater gender equality; it's actually, 'I want out. I'm done. I want them to pay me off. How do I set about getting that?' So, it sets a different agenda, and that's my job; that's what I do. I don't actually try to solve the problem further down the chain, because I'm at the other end, but, by the time it gets to us, that's where it's at and it's difficult to change that. 

Is it increasing? 

Increasing? 

The numbers of people that get to that position. 

I haven't seen that but, again, I can only speak for my own practice. It's stayed pretty constant throughout the fees and then the fee going. The level of queries about pregnancy discrimination has remained consistent. 

I will also say that I routinely have employers saying that they've got a pregnant employee and how can they get rid of her. It's a fact of the matter that I still get asked that question: 'She is pregnant; she didn't tell us'. And I act mostly for employers, okay, so I'm actually acting for the nasty pasties, not the employees, and they do routinely ask that question. They also complain that people with disabilities haven't revealed that they had a disability before they started work, so that's a consistent theme there—a view that you should reveal this. And if you're being honest, okay, and if you're being realistic, you can understand why. If somebody has just spent a lot of money recruiting somebody and maybe paid a big agency fee, the idea that, actually, within six months that person's going to take a year off, is a blow to that business. I think a large part of this is about not recognising that employers do go, 'Oh dear, this great person that we thought was going to be here to lead us forward isn't going to be here for a year'. That's a blow for an organisation, and the smaller they are, the bigger the blow it is. When you're talking about having full and frank conversations, I think, actually, it should be okay for employers to be able to say, 'Gosh, that's a bitter disappointment because we think you're really great, and you're not going to be here for a year'. I think that's human nature. Maybe that's not a PC viewpoint, but I think I can understand why employers do go, 'Oh dear, I'm sorry you're not going to be around'.  

I think it's very useful that you've put that on the table, Bethan, because we want to deal with the realities of the situation. 

Yes, I think that for employers it can be a disruption, and we have to acknowledge that and find a solution to it so that we can all go forward. 

Well, that's the point, isn't it? That's the point. I mean, that happens, doesn't it, and quite often the pregnancy hasn't even been planned. It's a fact of life. So, how do we get around that crucial time when that information is relayed to the employer, 'Look, I'm pregnant so, sorry, I'm going to be disappearing for a year'? How that conversation takes place and how we best get the best solution for the woman, but also for the employer, out of that kind of—. 

Well, I think that comes back to the same point and probably—I'll let the others speak about this as well—it's the whole thing of shared parental leave, because it's always a woman's problem: 'Oh dear, you're pregnant'. Whereas, actually, if there was a greater take-up of shared parental leave so that, actually, your male employees are coming to you and saying, 'I interviewed you and I didn't have a child, but my wife is now having a baby and I plan to take some shared parental leave', so that that time out of the workplace is a shared thing and men and women do it equally. That's a big change to achieve and it certainly hasn't been taken up so far—it has been in some of the Nordic countries—where 'the pram in the hall', as Connolly said, isn't the enemy of all ambition; it's actually a shared pram and the women are not out of the workplace for a whole year, because actually the man is taking some of that time off as well to look after the child. That is where I think the change will come, if it can come, and it has to be a major change, because you know that the take-up of shared parental leave has been negligible.

Yes, I mean, I think the fact that, actually, if you think about it, men can carry on having kids for a lot longer than women, and so actually until men become as much of a—

Risk.

—risk, from an employer's perspective, this is going to carry on happening. I think it's really interesting that we don't have—. I mean, obviously, we all get a very self-selecting pool of people because they come to us because there's a problem, but the male clients that we have had, which are very few, who have wanted to be able to take shared parental leave and contacted us, they have frequently had the response of, 'Well, don't take too long, because it will affect your career'. I think that that is the normal response for employers still, and men are worried about jeopardising their career, because they see what happens to women. So, I think that until it becomes the norm for men to take, say, three months out, it isn't going to change. I think the Nordic example of the use-it-or-lose-it type affair, which is key, I think—. Norway in particular has that. It's absolutely key and it means that it is the absolute norm that men take three to six months out.

And they have virtually no gender pay gap as well—

Absolutely.

—in the Nordic countries.

And the board representation and all of those kinds of things—

They've had compulsory quotas, haven't they?

And high taxes.

And very high taxes, and it's very well paid, the parental leave. So, it comes—

It comes down to pay as well, which is the other thing we were talking about. For men to be able to afford to do that, the idea that they don't get the same six weeks at 90 per cent—that should at least be matched, I think, for shared parental leave.

Yes, I agree.

Okay. Emma, which charity are you involved with, by the way?

The organisation I'm joint chief executive officer of, YESS, is a charity. So, we provide affordable advice. We charge on a cross-subsidy model, so those who can afford to pay us pay and those who can't don't. But we've been doing a joint project with Maternity Action. Maternity Action had funding from the EHRC, so they referred women who called the helpline to us. So, for the women, it was a free service. We were getting a fixed amount per woman to advise them. But it was a pilot scheme. It worked very well. I think we had—. The figures, I think, were about 40 women altogether.

Yes, okay. Thanks very much. There's a question that we have in terms of an Equality and Human Rights Commission survey, which showed a disconnect, really, between employers and employees. So, 87 per cent of employers felt it was in the best interests of organisations to support pregnant women and those on maternity leave, but 71 per cent of mothers reported negative or discriminatory experiences. So, we're just looking for possible reasons and views on why that is the case. It may well be that what you've already said adequately covers that, but is there anything else you'd like— 

I think, when asked a direct question, most employers aren't going to admit to the fact that it is the opposite, if that's how they feel. I think also there's a real lack of—. The EHRC did a campaign, which was the #worksforme campaign, which we actually worked with them on, which was putting together video content and things like that about where employers felt that it had worked well and why it worked well at various stages of supporting employees in maternity and pregnancy and on return to work. But there's very little positive information out there about flexible working and about supporting people at that stage. So, I think there's a lack of knowledge. I also think there's always, when there's a broken relationship—and I don't mean as in it's broken down, but an interrupted relationship, a situation where somebody is out of work for a year—it's like when somebody's been on long-term sick leave. There's the ability, if they're not there, to make them into the 'other' and people lose the ability to have a normal conversation, which comes back to that. And so, I think that women often perceive that the employer is being very difficult when perhaps they're just saying 'no', but they're not saying 'no' in a particularly helpful way. The employer perceives the woman as being very demanding because she's asking to work four days a week or in a certain way, because she's asking in a very demanding way, but she's perhaps asking like that because she's nervous. So, I think there's that disconnect in people's perceptions. We all know that you go into a meeting and one person will have thought one thing and another person will have thought another. I think that's exaggerated when you've had an interrupted relationship.

I think it comes down largely to human nature and the fact that people are different, and women are different and the response is different. I act for lots of employers and they will either treat women exactly the same when they're pregnant and give them the same advancement opportunities, and then the woman complains, 'I'm pregnant and they haven’t given me any slack; I've got the same level of targets. I'm being asked to go to the same meetings. It's exactly the same and there's no slack for me and I'm tired and I'm pregnant', or they say, 'Well, you obviously should have a bit more time off', and the woman says, 'Now that I'm pregnant, they're treating me differently; they're not giving me the same opportunities and they're wrapping me in cotton wool'. Those two issues are inevitable and that's the whole thing about having full and frank conversations about what somebody wants and what would be a good pregnancy time at work and what would be a good return to work, without making assumptions about what either side actually wants, because the truth is that, often, people get it wrong and that's what leads to that disconnect.

I think it also helps if leaders take the initiative and lead by example and take flexible working and agile working and all the rest of it. If junior employees—both sexes—see that happening, they're more likely to take those opportunities themselves and take advantage of that, if they see that, actually, from on-high, this is what's happening. The good example to be set would be from the top level down.

Okay. Thanks very much. We'll move on, then. Bethan Sayed.

We've discussed a lot of the stuff on discrimination, but I think for me—I was in Denmark recently, and I saw groups of men out with prams all together in a group, and I know it's a small thing, but even just seeing it happening on the streets really brought it home to me. If we saw that happening here in Wales through shared parental leave, then we could achieve a lot of things. I just wanted to throw that into the mix.

That has to become part of the norm, because the truth is that men don't actually have those support networks. The few rare ones who take some parental leave or work part-time, they push the pram and the women go, 'What's he doing?' They huddle around and think, 'He must be a weirdo'. Those support networks that mothers having some time off have are not common for men to tap into, and it must be quite lonely, on top of probably all of their colleagues talking behind their backs about how they're under the thumb and not real men. So, it's a massive change in culture that we need to make it so that seeing men pushing prams is something we don't even notice.

Obviously, you're lawyers, so do you think that it's more to do with what people know in the workforce in terms of their legal rights or do you think it is more to do with culture? Because obviously we've had two other panels and they seem to suggest it's a mixture of both, so people don't know the law, and if they do, they want to try and flout it, or in other regards, it is to do with the fact that there may be another line manager who may not reflect what the higher manager wants them to do in terms of the culture. I'm sure it's not simple, but—.

I definitely feel it's a mixture of both. We advise a mixture of employers and employees and where we're advising employers, if the right practices are set in writing and communicated to the workforce from the start—. So, you have decent maternity policies and you incorporate into that things like agreed communication plans when women are on maternity leave, so the level of communication is adequate and is what is wanted, as opposed to, perhaps, no communication, which often happens, being locked out and having no idea what's happening in the rest of the workforce. Putting in place the right policies and procedures is a very important starting point. Then, ensuring the right culture throughout the organisation, again, is obviously critical. But then, at the same time, you do need the laws in place to give a bit of teeth.

So, if people do need to enforce their rights if things go wrong, which they do, you do still need the legal rights and the awareness of those rights. I think the Equality and Human Rights Commission has done a great job, on the website, of providing free guidance notes to anyone who wants them—they're very clearly written. That's very helpful, and that should always continue. So, I think it's definitely a mixture of both guidance and knowing what your rights are.

In terms of the people coming to you—I've been asking about the difference between local authorities—in terms of the claims coming to you, are there a higher proportion coming from the private sector as opposed to the public sector? What are the differences, so we can understand as a committee?

The bigger the employer—. So, the public sector is often very big and is set up to have good practices. If they aren't followed, it's often down to individual managers or departments not quite getting it. But, overall, the public sector has much more detailed, better practices, it just might be that they're not followed in the individual circumstances, whereas I think that within the private sector it's much easier for there to be either no policies at all or bad practices and bad culture.

I also think in the private sector you've got many more small employers who are ignorant and don't understand the law. I think access for them to proper legal advice—. I think one of the things that disappeared—I don't know when it disappeared—was that when you went to the doctor you got a leaflet, and one half was for you about the right to paid time off to go to antenatal appointments and one was to give to your employer so that they understood. So, it wasn't coming from you—you weren't aggressively saying, 'I'm entitled to this, that and the other'; it was simply, 'This is the case—I was given this by my doctor and I thought you might find it informative'.

So, I think the difference between the public and private sectors is that the private sector can be a lot more cutthroat—it doesn't necessarily have any mandate to have policies in place. There's nothing forcing them, like the public sector equality duty, and they often are much, much smaller and, therefore, can't support access to legal advice, support or HR support.

I don't see many public sector employees, because, truthfully, they're often unionised and, therefore, will be taking advice through their union or a union firm, and I'm not one of those firms. So, I rarely see public sector employees. If I do, it's because they haven't joined a union or they're not happy with their union's advice and they want to double-check it.

So the issues that come to you are the same, but just from different sectors.

They're the same, but I would say that public sector employees have a higher expectation of being better treated than private sector employees. There is a handbook, they are aware of it, they have looked at it and they are aware of their rights and want to enforce them, as opposed to not knowing about them. I actually think that there's plenty of information available for employers. You have to have access to a computer and you have to be able to read. I'm not actually being facetious about that; there are people who don't have access to a computer and who do struggle with reading—

Employers?

Yes, where English isn't their first language. So, I'm not being—. There are people who struggle with accessing the plentiful free information that's available online, but there is a tonne of it. And there are so many Mumsnet forums, as well ACAS, as well as gov.uk, which I think is an incredible resource and very easy to understand. There's the EHRC stuff, and in Cardiff we've also got the Speakeasy clinic, where people can come and have free legal advice on a Wednesday between 18:00 and 20:00, and there's always a long queue. There is, I think, a lot of advice. If an employer doesn't know the law, it's because they haven't bothered to Google gov.uk—that's appalling. I think the information is out there, it's just lazy people who haven't accessed it, or have some barrier to accessing it for some reason. So, I think the advice is there for both employer and employee, and I routinely see people who already have looked it all up and have Googled it and know the position, they just want to know how to enforce it, how to get where they want to be, which, as I said, by the time they come to me, is usually a payoff, using the law they've looked up. That's my experience. I can only talk from my own experience.

I have a different experience, and I think I represent more employees who aren't as perhaps high up the food chain, because they can't access. So, people might know what their rights are, but they don't know how to use them to either keep their job, so to use them constructively—this comes back to the how to have a constructive conversation part. So, we are often in the background, we don't go on the record, we are coaching the employee on how to have that conversation. We will help them write a script so that rather than saying, 'I think you're discriminating against me', they can say, 'I feel that this might not have happened had I not been on maternity leave', that sort of question, and being able to show the employer the gov.uk website or the ACAS website or the EHRC website. So, it's a neutral area, saying, 'Well, actually, it does say that I can have this paid time off' or, 'You are meant to be making adjustments, for health and safety, to my working environment'.

So, from an employee point of view, I do see an awful lot of people who either don't know their rights, or, if they do know their rights, don't know how to use that constructively to remain in work. And for most women, that's what they want. They don't want to bring a claim. We see people a lot earlier who perhaps don't want to leave yet, or can't afford to just leave. That's the other thing; a lot of women cannot afford to simply go, 'Oh well, if you pay me three months' money, I'll find another job soon enough'. They can't, because then they're stuck in that catch-22 of how do they find another job if they can't afford to pay for the childcare so that they can look for the job and all the rest of it. If someone's been earning the minimum wage or has just had a year off, or even the last three months are unpaid, and they go back to work and are made redundant on their return to work, which is what I see an awful lot of, they have no money to be able to either enforce their rights or to—they have to put up with bad treatment so that they can stay in work and afford to maybe stay on and look for another job. So, people put up with an awful lot of bad treatment because they can't afford not to.

There definitely is an expectation of better treatment in the public sector, and I think it's because of this public sector equality duty, which doesn't exist, obviously, in the private sector. That's forced it right up the equality agenda, and rightly so, and that's the main reason for the difference in attitude. It's legal clout. If local authorities, public authorities, are being forced to do this, they've done it and it's really helpful, but obviously that's the difference between the private and public sector. The expectation is definitely there and it's because of that.

In the private sector, there are some very good employers around. There are also some dodgy ones, and some of the dodgy ones treat it as an add-on, a tick-box exercise for the purposes of tendering for public contracts. That happens. It does happen. I think it's a matter of cultural shifts required, and gradually, as the public sector equality duty kicks in and people realise the difference that is making, the private sector is looking at the public sector and bringing it up to its standards. It's having that affect, the contrast between the two. As I said, there are some very good examples of very good employers in the private sector, but equally I think it helps to have the Welsh public sector setting the way forward and showing how it's done properly.

Obviously, the public sector here is a major employer, so it has skewed the figures. Just as there are bad employers, I put this out that there are bad employees. Just as I've had employers who ask me, 'She's pregnant, how can we get rid of her?', I have had women coming back from maternity leave who say, 'I don't really want to come back, we've always planned that I would take a year off, how do I take them to tribunal to get a nice payoff? Because I can angle the discrimination element, I think I've been badly treated, I'd like a nice cheque.' I routinely see that as well. So, you've got to be honest—you know, people are complicated. There are good employers and there are good employees and there are bad employers and there are bad employees, which is why one size fits all often doesn't work. I had a lady a few years back whose husband was relocating elsewhere and she wanted to move with him, and 'How can I take a discrimination claim? What can I look for to get a pay-off?' 

Is that widespread, because that worries me that they're using the law in that way? 

I personally haven't—I've been doing this for over 20 years and I haven't come across that. 

I think it's about your client base. I act for private sector, high net worth individuals and so I routinely get that query.

Perhaps you need to change what you do, I think. [Laughter.]

I do too. I've been in a private firm that specialised in discrimination before I was working for this charity and I've worked for union firms. YESS's very model means that we act for a lot of high net worth individuals as well and I don't see that. 

So, it comes down to who your client base is, doesn't it, or the people who have referred—. I think that's the point I'm trying to make that it isn't always the fact that the employee is badly treated. Sometimes the employee is trying to badly treat the employer. Sometimes. 

Definitely, I think most of my claims cases have not been that kind of situation. People have really been wrongly treated and they want to access justice. There are dodgy employees around, bad employees around, that does exist, but I think the majority are not like that in my experience. 

I also think that that's where access, proper access to legal advice, is really important. I have a lot of people who come to me and say, 'Well, I feel that this is happening', and I can say to them, 'Well, actually they're not obliged to offer you flexible working, they're obliged to consider it.' So, actually what they've done isn't unfair, isn't unlawful, and you should perhaps not be as upset as you are. The fact that people don't get access—you may have good access here—. Maternity Action and Working Families both run helplines for women or parents. Our experience is that they are massively oversubscribed. People cannot get through to those helplines. There's no legal aid and it means that people don't have access to good advice that will help them understand whether they've got a case or not. So, I've spent a lot of time advising employees, 'Well, actually I know you're really angry about this and you feel that that's unfair, but it's not unlawful.' Actually, if there was more access to affordable or free advice, then that would put paid to the idea that there are these claimants out there to bring bad cases. I don't think there are many. There's an easy way of ensuring that they don't get that far: if they had someone sensible telling them that it wasn't going to get them very far. 

Okay. At this stage, we will move on to Jenny Rathbone. 

Excellent. The YESS have submitted some excellent examples of things that could be done to change the law, but unfortunately employment law is not devolved. So, I'm sure we'd like to say, 'Absolutely, we definitely want that', but I want to just focus on the things that we can directly do something about. So, James has submitted some very positive remarks about the effect of the public sector equality duty that we have in Wales and you've already talked about the way that's going to influence how the private sector responds. Can either of you give any good examples of good practice in relation to support for fathers and partners, because I think this is absolutely key to changing the mood music? 

I can't. I haven't seen any of my employer clients making those changes. Just last week—which again is law—the employment appeal tribunal found that it wasn't discriminatory for Capita plc to pay enhanced maternity leave but not enhanced shared parental leave. So, Mr Ali won at first instance in the employment tribunal, but his employer appealed—Capita appealed—to the employment appeal tribunal and he lost at appeal. So, he was complaining that his employer was enhancing maternity leave for the first 14 weeks—maternity pay, sorry, not leave—but not enhancing shared parental pay. He argued that was discriminatory and he lost. I don't know if that will be appealed. I hope it will be appealed, because I think that's a major lever to non-change. Because I was telling my employer clients, 'If you enhance the maternity pay, you should enhance shared parental pay, so that it's equal, and otherwise it would be discriminatory.' Now I've had to go back to all my employer clients and go, 'Actually, the EAT say it's not, so you can carry on for the moment and pay enhanced maternity pay but not enhanced shared parental pay.' So, we'll have to see if that changes.

Aviva was a big example. They've recently announced that men and women could have a year off on the same rates of maternity pay across the organisation. I wrote a column about it in the Western Mail that said if you were looking for a job right now and you were a young family, you would both want to go and apply to work for Aviva, so that you could both have this time off together. That's not my personal example; that's a publicised example of a large employer changing practices.

I think Virgin did something similar, didn't they?

So, that would be a good example, but I haven't seen it in private practice.

On a similar point, the two weeks paternity leave, paternity pay, paid at the same rate as SMP is just too low for men to take. The reason that people aren't using these rights is because they can't afford it—they can't afford to take these rights. So, I think one of the recommendations that has been bandied about is increasing paternity pay and paternity leave to six weeks at 90 per cent, just as it is for SMP. 

Unfortunately, this isn't devolved. In terms of influencing, the EHRC has admitted a list of organisations who signed up to their Working Forward pledge on this issue, which includes a variety of private companies: BT, Legal & General, QLS—I'm not quite sure if I know what they do—and Ford. These are large companies we've all heard of. So, it's really how well they are actually doing what they say and how well it's getting publicised to encourage other organisations to follow their lead.

They've got to start somewhere. I think that campaign has been a very good campaign and the big names that have signed up to it, they're going to push the agenda forward and it'll be leading by example. I think it will gradually get out there, but what you need is switched-on companies to take this and run with it, and set the example. So, I think it's still fairly early days on that front, but the more that sign up to that pledge, the better.

Okay. In light of the very positive remarks you make about the public sector equality duty, could you explain why teachers are facing such specific problems around getting job shares or reduced hours when they want to return to work, but not at the 80 hours a week that a lot of teachers are doing? I wondered if you could explain why the education sector seems to be lagging behind some of the positive things you're telling us are happening in other parts of the public sector.

Well, I don't think I have the actual bottom answer to that, but I suspect a large reason is finances and having a budget to have the flexibility to do all these sorts of things.

But job shares normally would be paid pro rata, depending on whatever their seniority is.

My comment in relation to the PSED being really positive is mainly because of the wider effect it's having on the private sector I'm looking on and the third sector. In relation to teachers, I'm not so sure that I have the answer for that question. 

Is it because a lot of headteachers are male and the teachers are female?

That may be. They've offered to do a specific piece of work on that.

I don't know about Wales specifically. I do a lot of work in schools, but not around this particular area, but I think there is, in primary schools, still a perception that a job share doesn't work. I think there's a lack of willingness, that parents think it adversely affects their children's education if they've got two separate teachers delivering—that kind of thing. So, I think that's the primary school aspect. I don't understand why it would be harder at a secondary school, for example, for somebody to work part-time. I don't understand why that would be the case. 

We heard from Cerys Furlong earlier about her own child's positive experience of having a job share in the primary school because they got the best of both worlds. All teachers will have specific things they're good at and not so good at. 

I was in a school where I was giving a—. I go in and I lecture in schools on how to manage capability fairly and things like that, and I touched on discrimination law and was giving an example to try and explain what indirect discrimination means, and I was using the 'People can only every work full-time.' And they sort of looked at me and went, 'Oh, well we have that, we only allow our teachers to come back to work full-time.' And they just literally stopped in their tracks and said, 'Oh, we hadn't even thought about it.' And there was a woman who'd come later when her child was older and she said, 'Well, I wouldn't have been able to come back to work if you'd enforced that policy on me.' And, so, they've stopped and re-thought and are now offering job shares. But I think it's literally as simple as that, that they hadn't even thought about the fact that operating a policy like that was potentially indirect discrimination. 

Okay. Well, that's obviously something we could work on. 

Could you say a little bit about the specific problems for people who are low-paid, zero hours, flexible working? For them, it seems to me very, very difficult for the law, as currently constituted, for them to get any entitlements. 

Yes, I think it's very difficult. Again, anecdotally, what we've seen through doing the Maternity Action project over the last three to four months is that women who are in lower paid, more vulnerable sectors are discriminated against earlier, so they are often dismissed at the point that they tell them that they're pregnant or at some point during pregnancy, whereas I think higher up the pay scale, people are dismissed on their return because they're perceived as a threat when they come back from maternity leave. It's a more sophisticated form of discrimination. The results are the same. And, also, what we've seen is that women who are on zero-hours contracts, or are perhaps agency staff and supplied that way, or on fixed-term contracts, they are just not given more work. And it's much harder for them to show that they've even been dismissed. So, the zero-hours contract person, it might be very difficult for them to show they've even been dismissed because they're still on the books, so to speak, they're just not being given work. So, they've got a higher threshold even to show that they are being discriminated against. 

And then they need to resign then in order to get benefits. 

Exactly. And that's risky as well.

So, then, they're seen as resigning. What I see mostly when I do the volunteer sessions at the Speakeasy clinic in Richmond Road in Cardiff is that when I tell people what they need to do to enforce their employment law rights—not necessarily just pregnancy and maternity discrimination, but any kind of employment law rights—that they've got to raise a grievance first, and then they've got to go to ACAS, early conciliation, and then they've got to bring a claim, they look at me as if I'm mad, and they think that—and I can understand this entirely—there should be somebody you can ring up and say, like if you weren't being paid the national minimum wage, 'I'm not being allowed my right to paid time off for antenatal care', and that somebody, like mummy or daddy, or some other authority, should then ring up the employer and say, 'You do know that you've got to give them paid time off for antenatal care, don't you? Okay, fine.' So, I understand that completely because you have to put a lot of work into it, by way of raising a formal grievance, or by way of bringing a claim, to get your employment law rights. And they look at me and say, 'Well, if I raise a fuss, I won't get any more hours, so I'm just going to have to put up and shut up if I'm going to retain my good shifts or my current working pattern.' But they are horrified that there isn't somebody you can call to tell them off. 

And, in smaller companies, without HR departments, are they even aware of this obligation?

The worst offenders are cleaning companies, catering companies, large organisations that have outsourced cleaning, outsourced security, outsourced catering. Those are the ones where it's almost separated from the employer, the big hotel, or the big company, and somebody else is running the cleaning contract, usually not even on site—they're based somewhere else. There's a separation between the work being done and the employer.

Okay. So, obviously, we need to sharpen up our procurement policies, because we look at pay, but we clearly may not be looking closely enough at all these other issues as well. Are there any other examples of good practice from other countries that Wales could learn from, particularly those around good practice that we are in the position to implement? Changes to employment law we can applaud, but we can't do anything about.

We touched upon the Nordic laws, but that's employment law, so you can't touch that.

Childcare.

Childcare and childcare costs, maybe. I don't know if that's something—.

This is certainly something that is on our radar.

We're going to come on to that in some questions shortly.

Okay. All right, well, should I keep going now, or—?

I tell you what, if you leave it there, Jenny, just one further thing—one further question—for this section, really, and it's around Brexit. Given that the UK Government has said that, after Brexit, equal treatment legislation may require a non-legislative common framework, which may include a mixture of reserved and devolved competence, I wonder whether you'd have any views on whether there might be an opportunity for Wales to increase its legislative power over equal treatment law when these powers are repatriated, as it were?

I think that the current campaign that—I can't remember if it's Working Families—the Working Families group are running is that we need to keep track with the European law, and, actually, what we risk with Brexit is very much falling behind, and most of our parental rights and good employment practices with regard to all of this have come from Europe. My concern, actually, with Brexit, is that it will be salami-sliced away. No-one's outright going to come out and say, 'Well, we're taking away maternity rights', but I think that there will be a gradual—. The risk with devolution of power is that there will be a gradual reduction, not the opposite. So, if Wales were to take the opportunity to increase, fantastic, but my fears actually are that once we're not obliged to keep track with the EU, we will fall behind.

Okay, thanks for that. We'll move on, then, to Janet Finch-Saunders.

Thank you. I don't know if you've watched any of the earlier sessions today, but Welsh local authorities—. There is some reticence, it would appear, in them publishing their gender pay gap data in the same form and location as other organisations with more than 250 employees. What are your views on that?

My overall view is that—. I think the most recent research from the Fawcett Society suggested that, I think, 99 per cent of UK businesses aren't caught by that. So, it's too high. It should be a lot lower than that. The recommendation in France, for example, is 50. I think in other countries, like Sweden, it's 25.

What about in terms of local authorities, who are a major employer in the public sector, in terms of them publishing their—?

Well, I think it's a very useful starting point, and it's very early days, obviously, but I think what we should try and get to is the point where we can progressively reduce it down to a lower level.

Yes, and that seems to coming from the previous witnesses—that 250 employees is too high. A figure of 100 has been suggested.

Yes, 100. Well, that's an improvement on 250, yes.

But you believe—. I mean, I believe that if a local authority sets a good example by publishing this and that it's easily accessible, it's a good start, yes.

Yes, absolutely.

Yes, I agree. I think, actually, what we've seen with the current pay gap reporting is that it's started the conversation and that's what we need to facilitate. Again, using Norway as an example, in Norway, absolutely, you can see exactly what everybody earns through their tax returns. It is public record and, as a result—

I wasn't suggesting going that far—

No, I know you're not, but what I'm saying is that the more conversations we have, the more transparent everything is—

Absolutely, yes.

—the better able people are to stand up and say, 'Well, hang on a minute, why is that the case?' I mean, look at the BBC. It's a prime example, isn't it—

Absolutely right. 

—of where people have finally been able to go, 'Well, hang on a minute, why is that the case?' It may not be—. You know, the gender pay gap reporting data doesn't necessarily give you the information with which to bring an equal pay claim, and I think there's a misunderstanding there. It doesn't give you that information necessarily, it doesn't mean you have an equal pay claim, but it starts the conversation and it means it's okay to ask. And I think until it's okay to ask what other people earn, we aren't going to reach parity. 

People are very confused between the gender pay gap and equal pay, and the BBC have routinely confused the two in their reporting, which has confused matters. You know, people think that a gender pay gap means that people are being paid different rates of pay, when it doesn't mean that at all. The data's very wide, but it's shining a light in some dark corners. In law firms in particular, it is highlighting vast discrepancies in pay. So, it is a tool, but it's quite a big one, and it's not particularly precise, I don't think, yet, and there's a lot of work as well for it to be—. What it has done, of course, is that everybody's having to publish their gender pay gap data with a big story, you know? There's a big public relations spin about, 'Why is it like this?', and then actually providing data for previous years to try to show that this year was a bad one, but, actually, we've been better in previous years. So, there's a whole, kind of, PR exercise generated by the gender pay gap duty obligations. 

I think it'd be even more useful to be broken down by age, disability, race, LGBT and part-time status as well—then you'd really start shining the light in some dirty corners.  

Yes, it's one minority. It's only one in a minority. That's true of—

[Inaudible.]—asked, but I think that's something that is coming gradually.