Changes to employment laws announced in last week's budget are encouraging for small employers but could disproportionately affect women, solicitors have warned.

Plans revealed by chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne included a three-year moratorium on new regulations for small companies and start-ups; a consultation to remove third party harassment protections and a revision of proposed new maternity and paternity rights.

He also unveiled a decision not to extend to smaller companies the right to request time off to train, and the scrapping of dual discrimination laws to be brought in under the Equality Act.

Pam Loch, principal of Kent employment firm Loch Associates, said the budget was encouraging for smaller employers, but doubted it would make a ‘massive difference’.

She said: ‘The right to request time off for training is just that – you can ask for it, but you won’t necessarily get it, particularly when money is tight.’

Loch added that making it harder for employees to bring tribunal actions against employers would have had a ‘more significant impact’.

She said: ‘Charging a fee or rigorously screening applications could save employers the expense of defending claims that cost the employee nothing.’

National firm Russell Jones & Walker employment partner Julie Morris said: ‘More women than men work for small companies, and so the three-year moratorium on new regulations is likely to have a disproportionate affect on women.’

Morris added that an employee’s right to protection against third-party harassment by suppliers and clients should remain.

‘If employers are finding the requirement unworkable, then it should be changed, not removed,’ she said.