Equality protections

Lawyers have hit out at government proposals to scrap two Equality Act 2010 protections for workers suffering discrimination or harassment.

The government published amendments to the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill last week, to be considered in the report stage of the Bill. These would repeal ss 40 and 138 of the Act.

Under s 40, an employer can be held responsible for failing to stop harassment of staff by third parties, where they have been told about it, it has happened on at least two occasions, and the employer has failed to take reasonably practicable steps to prevent it.

Section 138 allows potential discrimination claimants to use a questionnaire to obtain information from their employer.

Angharad Harris, chairman of the Law Society employment law committee, says: “The third-party harassment provision encourages best practice among employers and this in turn helps to reduce potential incidents of harassment at work.

“The questionnaire procedure can also help employers because it encourages an employee to ask all of their questions at once, rather than through a series of informal questions which make it harder for an employer than if they had been raised all at once.”.”