I have recently joined a small company as a HR Advisor. The company currently pay any men going on paternity leave two weeks at full pay including full benefits, including car allowance where applicable. We currently have a couple of pregnant women who will be going onto maternity leave soon. The company is mostly men and they haven't had to deal with maternity leave and pay before and they are planning to pay statutory only.
My question is could that be seen as sex discrimination as men are paid more favourably than women by receiving full pay for two weeks?
Furthermore one of the women is in receipt of a car allowance which is paid on the provision that the car abides by a policy in terms of age, colour etc. Should she receive this throughout the maternity leave as a non remuneration benefit and/or seeing as the men receive theirs during paternity leave?
Thanks
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