Maternity leave too long, says fund veteran Pease
MATERNITY leave is too long at 52 weeks and is damaging women’s opportunities in the workplace, deputy chairman of investment house JO Hambro Nichola Pease told a Treasury committee yesterday.
In an evidence session on the City gender divide, Pease said: “A year is too long and sex discrimination cases that run into the tens of millions are ridiculous.”
Pease, who has three of her own children with hedge fund manager Crispin Odey, said the days of the “old boy network” were long gone.
But she warned that firms were put off hiring women by the length of maternity leave and the threat of sexual discrimination cases, for which damages are unlimited.
The committee is seeking to establish whether a greater proportion of women in high-level City roles could have helped prevent the risk-taking that led to the banking crisis.
Professor Charles Goodhart, a former Bank of England monetary policy committee member, said that “less of the alpha male would be beneficial”.