Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Bill

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 23rd November 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I commend the hon. Member for Bath for bringing this Bill forward. That is a lot of work, and it is difficult, but it is great to be able to work across the Committee to do it.

The statistics about how many women in customer-facing roles in particular face sexual harassment are shocking. I think most of us who have been in that position recognise the gravity of that. It has been a pleasure to serve on the Committee. I recognise the serious nature of this legislation, and I wish the hon. Lady well with the passage of the Bill.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Bath for bringing forward this Bill, which is particularly important in stressing the employer’s liability. Most of us—most women, certainly—have faced some sort of sexual harassment in the workplace at some point in our careers, and one of the main issues was that it was much easier to solve it quietly or sweep it under the carpet because the employer had no liability to act. This Bill is a great step forward in tackling workplace sexual harassment and changing that culture, which is so insidious. We must recognise it and ensure that action is taken.

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I rise to support the Bill, but I also want to say a few words about the hon. Member for Bath. She was elected in 2017, a few years after me, and has been a doughty champion for women’s rights. This is not the first time she has brought such a Bill to the House. In 2018, she introduced a very good private Member’s Bill about upskirting and the things that we turn a blind eye to. That private Member’s Bill was supported by the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), and the extent of cross-party support demonstrates how strong the Bill was.

The hon. Member for Bath has worked really hard on abortion rights as well as on eating disorders, which are becoming more of an issue in society. They have always been an issue but are highlighted now more than ever because of the effect of social media. Another strand of her work is on violence against women. Even though we are not in the same party, I am very proud that she is in Parliament, because these issues are important for women and for society, and we have to fight for them and legislate on them, as all Members have said.

Sadly, a lot of young women have come to believe that sexual harassment is an unavoidable fixture of the workplace, and that is not how it should be; I will come on to talk about LGBTQ workers and women in the workplace who come from ethnic minority backgrounds. I am also supporting the Bill on behalf of our children who have not yet come into the workplace, so that when they do they will, hopefully, not have to see, experience or be a victim of sexual harassment.

It has been 16 years since the #MeToo movement started and five years since it was relaunched on social media. Here we are, 16 years later, still trying to legislate against harassment. I am not sure whether we should be celebrating, but it feels like it has taken a very long time to get here. The fact that we are here probably should be celebrated; at least we are doing something about the issue.