Third-party harassment provisions in Equality Act repealed

Implementation date: 1 October 2013

Section 65 of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 (PDF format, 1MB) (on the UK legislation website) repeals s.40(2) to (4) of the Equality Act 2010, which provides that the employer will, in certain circumstances, be liable where an individual is harassed by a third party.

Key details

On 15 May 2012 the Government launched a consultation proposing to repeal the third-party harassment provisions in the Equality Act 2010 on the basis that there is "no evidence to suggest that the third-party harassment provisions are serving a practical purpose or are an appropriate or proportionate manner of dealing with the type of conduct that they are intended to cover". The Government has decided to go ahead with this proposal and remove the third-party harassment provisions from the Equality Act 2010.

The Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 (Commencement No. 3, Transitional Provisions and Savings) Order 2013 (SI 2013/2227) (on the UK legislation website) commences s.65 of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 on 1 October 2013.