On 26 October, the Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Bill (‘the Bill’) received Royal Assent and introduces two amendments to the Equality Act 2010.

The Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023 (‘the Act’) introduces: 

1. A mandatory duty for employers to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of their employees; and 

2. Grants the Tribunal the power to award a 25% uplift in compensation in the event that an employee brings a successful claim for sexual harassment and the employer is found in breach of its duty to prevent sexual harassment.

However, the Act does not introduce all the proposals that were set out in the draft Bill. The draft Bill had proposed to introduce the mandatory requirement for employers to take “all” reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment, but the “all” requirement has been removed. In addition, the draft Bill proposed to re-introduce employer liability for third party harassment (meaning a employer would be liable if a third party harasses an employee in the course of their employment and the employer had failed to take all reasonable preventative steps). However, this has been excluded from the Act completely. 

Whilst the Act has watered down a number of the original proposals in the draft Bill, employers still need to be alert to the changes. Employers are required to ensure that they take “reasonable steps” to prevent sexual harassment and therefore whilst the threshold is lower than initially anticipated, the employer is still subject to a positive duty to prevent sexual harassment. The Government is keen to ensure that employers “take action to prioritise prevention of sexual harassment and ultimately improve workplace practices and cultures”.

In preparation for the Act coming into force, which is anticipated to be around October 2024, we suggest that employers review their equality and anti-harassment policies, consider implementing training and ensure that employees are aware that sexual harassment is not tolerated within the workplace.