Non-disclosure Agreements

Debate between Clive Betts and Josh Babarinde

Wednesday 2nd April 2025 Westminster Hall

[Josh Babarinde]

I would love to study that particular dimension. We must defend the rights of pregnant women and new mums, who have been so let down by our legislative framework, including the individual I am asking hon. Members to imagine. She went through mediation, where it was agreed that she would receive a severance payment in exchange for signing an agreement that included a gagging clause. She said:

“The net effect was that I was unemployed and, whilst I was financially compensated, I was unable to explain to future employers why I had left that employment and why it wasn’t my choice to do so.”

That is exactly the point that the hon. Member for Congleton (Mrs Russell) made. By the way, I really feel that her contribution to this debate has been kick-ass—I am not sure that that that is a parliamentary term, but I am sure that hon. Members agree. Further, this new mum said:

“I felt I was the party in the right and yet I was the one who had the uncertainty and stress of being unemployed and having to job hunt with a 9 month old baby.”

There is no need to imagine such a scenario because it is a true story. The only reason I cannot name the individual or the employer is that, although we might be protected by parliamentary privilege in this place, the lady whose circumstances I just described is not.

This is the reality faced by countless individuals across the country, right under our noses, and it is an injustice that cannot be tolerated. We as Members of Parliament have to act decisively to end this moral and regulatory failing. First, and no two ways about it, NDAs should be outlawed in cases of sexual misconduct, harassment and bullying, to ensure that no victim is silenced, no victim is prevented from seeking justice and no police or regulatory investigation is obstructed. We have already seen encouraging steps in the legal and academic sectors to ban the use of NDAs in such cases. We heard a bit about those from the right hon. Member for Sheffield Heeley, but these piecemeal efforts are not enough.

We need comprehensive legislation, and there is precedent for that in other jurisdictions, as has been touched on already. In Prince Edward Island in Canada, new legislation restricts the use and content of NDAs in cases of sexual harassment and discrimination in all out-of-court settlements where a survivor does not want it. In the USA, the Speak Out Act was passed in 2022 prohibiting non-disclosure and non-disparagement clauses agreed to before a dispute that involves sexual misconduct. Last month, Ireland became the first jurisdiction in the world to legislate country-wide against the misuse of NDAs. In the light of that, the efforts of the right hon. Member for Sheffield Heeley in her amendment are extremely laudable, as are the similar efforts of my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran). That is the first thing we must do: outlaw NDAs in such circumstances.

Secondly, we must ensure that individuals who sign NDAs outside those circumstances but under duress or intimidation have a clear and legal route to challenge them. Too often, victims sign these agreements without fully understanding their rights or the full extent of the implications. They end up, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, tied up in knots in their endeavour. I have heard from a man in this scenario who said,

“I had no resilience left to fight an investigation nor a tribunal so I accepted.”

On the powerful point raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), we must guarantee that legal advice is readily available, independent and free from conflicts of interest for people in these scenarios, so that no one feels coerced into silence by a document they barely understand.

Thirdly, we must foster a cultural shift in public and private organisations so that they no longer view NDAs as a convenient tool to shield themselves from scrutiny, and we can move away from the culture of fear, which the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), who is no longer in her place, referred to. Employers must be held accountable not only for misconduct that occurs on their watch, but for any attempt to cover it up. Transparency should be the norm, not the exception.

Finally, we must support victims and survivors in speaking out. That means strengthening whistleblower protections, including through establishing a dedicated office of the whistleblower, which the Liberal Democrats advocated for in our manifesto, alongside organisations such as WhistleblowersUK. There is a particular whistle- blower in my constituency who I will not name, but she knows who she is. She is campaigning hard on this front as well.

Silence benefits only those who perpetrate harm. Our role must be to amplify the voices of those who have been silenced for too long. This debate, while ostensibly technical and legalistic, gets to the core of what kind of society we want to be. Do we want to be a society in which institutions prioritise their reputations over human dignity, and victims are forced into silence while abusers continue unchecked, or do we want a society in which justice prevails, transparency is valued and every individual regardless of their status or power can be held accountable for their actions? I know which society I want to live in, and I think that all of us in this Chamber today are on the same page—in fact, I am confident of that. Liberal Democrats look forward to working with the Government on a cross-party basis to stamp out this insidious practice once and for all. We look forward also to hearing what steps the Minister will take to make that a reality.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

I now call the spokesman for the official Opposition.