Firms not supporting staff through IVF could lose £217m in hidden costs, study shows

UK employers who do not formally support staff undergoing fertility treatments could be losing £217.3m a year in sick leave, lost productivity and resignations, research estimates.Companies without fertility leave pay £35,317 per affected employee, compared with a cost of £388 for 10 days’ paid leave when a clear fertility policy is in place, the campaign group Fertility Matters at Work estimated.“Employees currently have no legal right to take paid time off work for fertility treatment,” said Alice Macdonald, the Labour MP for Norwich North, who will raise the findings in a 10-minute rule bill in parliament on Tuesday, in which she will put forward introducing a statutory right to paid time off for fertility appointments.She added: “A change in the law is not just a moral imperative but an economic one

Tell us: are you a UK centenarian or do you know one?

The number of centenarians (aged 100 years and over) in the UK has doubled from 8,300 in 2004 to 16,600 in 2024, according to the Office for National Statistics.Between 2004 and 2024, the number of male centenarians has tripled from 910 to 3,100. During the same period, the number of female centenarians almost doubled from 7,400 to 13,600.We would like to hear from centenarians, their family or friends, about what it has been like to bear witness to the past century’s seismic events and changes.Looking back, what advice would you give to your younger self? What is your secret to a long life? Let us know

Women must be warned of home birth risks and have access to skilled midwives, experts say

Women must be given clearer warnings on the potentially fatal dangers of giving birth at home and should only be aided by experienced midwives, experts have said.Maternity services worldwide are dealing with an increase in the number of women with more complex pregnancies. Many are choosing to have their baby in a familiar environment, in the comfort and privacy of their own home. Some choose a home birth because having their first baby in hospital was “deeply traumatic” and they are reluctant to repeat the experience.But access to safe, reliable and unrestricted home birth services is patchy, and varies enormously depending on where you live, experts say

Phillipson calls for ‘less public debate’ from EHRC on gender recognition rules

Bridget Phillipson has urged the equalities watchdog to focus more on helping ministers do their jobs and less on having public debates as a row continues about how long it will take to implement new rules on gender recognition.The comments by Phillipson, who is the equalities minister as well as the education secretary, come after the Equality and Human Rights Commission took the unusual step of urging the government to “act with speed” in approving its statutory guidance on responding to a landmark supreme court ruling on transgender rights.In a decision that delighted gender-critical activists, the UK supreme court ruled in April that the terms “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act referred only to a biological woman and to biological sex.The EHRC compiled statutory guidance on how organisations should interpret the ruling and sent it to ministers for approval. But government officials have said it will take time to properly assess the 300-plus-page document and blamed the watchdog for delays in providing necessary information, including an equalities impact assessment

Pornography depicting strangulation to become criminal offence in the UK

Porn featuring strangulation or suffocation – often referred to as “choking” – is due to be criminalised, with a legal requirement placed on tech platforms to prevent UK users from seeing such material.Possessing or publishing porn featuring choking will become a criminal offence under amendments to the Crime and Policing bill tabled in parliament on Monday.In a separate amendment, victims of intimate image abuse will also have longer to come forward, with the time limit to prosecute extended from six months to three years.The government said this would help break down unnecessary barriers victims face when reporting a crime, “improving access to justice for those who need it the most”.The choking ban comes after a recommendation from a government review into pornography which found it has contributed to establishing strangulation as a “sexual norm”

Equality commission’s guidance after sex ruling is fundamentally unworkable | Letter

Contrary to what Kishwer Falkner is suggesting (Letters, 28 October), MPs’ problem with the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s (EHRC) guidance was not that it failed to address every conceivable scenario, but that it set out fundamentally unworkable instructions to businesses that go far beyond what the supreme court actually ruled, and which places them at risk of costly litigation.Take the question of using a gendered bathroom – hardly a niche issue, given it is something most of us do on a daily basis. The EHRC’s guidance places the onus on businesses to police whether people are using a bathroom that corresponds with their sex assigned at birth.However, there is no practical way for businesses to know whether someone is transgender – based solely on their appearance – and challenging people risks humiliation for trans people and others whose appearance doesn’t neatly fit with society’s expectations. I have already heard appalling stories of women being aggressively challenged while waiting in a queue for the bathroom