Women on maternity leave already have special protection in a redundancy situation and must be offered a suitable alternative vacancy where one is available in priority over other employees at risk of redundancy.
The government is backing the Pregnancy and Maternity Discrimination Bill, which proposes to introduce regulations to extend this protection to employees during their pregnancy and after they return to work from maternity leave.
The length of the protected period is not specified in the bill, although some commentary suggests six months.
No date has been announced when it will come into force.