Member Richard Henderson Tribunal Member Zoe van Zwanenberg Samantha Nelson v Represented by: Mr B McKinlay, Solicitor Lloyds Banking Group plc — 2026

Samantha Nelson had worked as a Team Manager in the respondent's BBFA team since 2011 and remained on maternity leave from 20 November 2023 until her employment ended on 24 October 2024. In the 2024 restructuring the respondent began collective consultation with the union in March, announced the redundancy exercise on 7 May, pooled eight Scottish Grade D Team Managers for five remaining roles, and scored the claimant by reference to her earlier Team Manager performance and later alternative duties. She received the lowest weighted score, was selected for redundancy, and her notice was later extended by four weeks; she received enhanced redundancy pay of £48,707.28 net at termination.

On the pregnancy and maternity discrimination allegations, the tribunal accepted that the claimant was disadvantaged in some respects by receiving hard-copy paperwork 9 days later than colleagues, by delays in the score breakdown, a functioning laptop and a support meeting, and by some informal communications. It held, however, that those matters were explained by her inability to open the PDF, the manager's holiday, laptop access problems and the way the process was being handled, rather than by pregnancy or maternity leave. It also rejected the complaints about the scoring period, the denial of additional protections, the WhatsApp response, the handling of the grievance and appeal, and the alleged failure to provide support, finding no causal link to maternity leave.

Under the maternity and parental leave regulations, the tribunal held there was no breach of regulation 10 because the Team Manager secondments identified by the claimant were temporary roles, due to start imminently, and were not suitable alternative vacancies on substantially less favourable terms. It also found no detriment under regulation 19 and no reason connected with maternity leave under regulation 20. The unfair dismissal claim failed because the respondent had a genuine redundancy situation, carried out fair collective and individual consultation, reasonably applied the selection criteria and took reasonable steps to look for alternative employment, so dismissal fell within the range of reasonable responses.