The Government Equalities Office has published its consultation on plans to strengthen protections against sexual harassment at work.
The consultation, which is available here, considers a number of significant changes to equality legislation, including:
- extending time limits for all Equality Act claims in the Employment Tribunal to six months;
- imposing a new duty on employers to protect workers from harassment;
- allowing for dual enforcement of the new duty by the EHRC and/or individual employees;
- reintroducing employer liability for third party harassment of their staff;
- extending the coverage of Part V of the Equality Act 2010 to all interns and some volunteers.
Claire Darwin advised the Government Equalities Office on this consultation, in her capacity as a member of the Attorney General’s A Panel of Counsel. Full details about how to respond to the consultation can be found here. The consultation runs until 2 October 2019.