Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps his Department is taking to tackle sexual harassment in the workplace.

We are strengthening protections against workplace sexual harassment. The Employment

Rights Bill will amend the Equality Act 2010 to:

• require employers to take “all reasonable steps” to prevent sexual harassment of their employees;
• introduce an obligation on employers not to permit the harassment of their employees by third parties;
• enable regulations to specify steps that are to be regarded as “reasonable”, to determine whether an employer has taken all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment, and;
• strengthen protections for whistleblowers, by making it explicit that sexual harassment can be the basis for a protected disclosure.