Commentary on provisions of Act Section 1: Employer duty to prevent sexual harassment of employees
This section amends the 2010 Act by inserting new section 40A. It creates a duty on employers to prevent sexual harassment of their employees.
	New section 40A(1) describes the new duty: employers must take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of their employees in the course of their employment.
	‘Reasonable steps’ depends on the specific circumstances of the employer, including its size and sector and other relevant facts. In most cases, the employer’s practices and procedures (e.g. grievance and reporting procedures) for preventing and dealing with sexual harassment are likely to be relevant.
	New section 40A(2) defines "sexual harassment" in the context of new subsection (1) as meaning harassment of the kind described in section 26(2) (unwanted conduct of a sexual nature).
	New section 40A(3) is a "signpost" provision, which explains that a breach of the employer duty in new section 40A(1) is enforceable in two ways. First, a standalone breach (and a breach of section 111 or 112 that relates to a breach of the employer duty) may be enforced by the EHRC as an unlawful act under its existing enforcement powers in Part 1 of the 2006 Act. Second, a breach may also be enforced by an employment tribunal where it has first found a breach of section 40 which involved, to any extent, sexual harassment. Further provisions on the enforcement and remedy of the employer duty are provided in sections 2 and 3.
	Incidents of third party harassment in the workplace will continue not be covered by civil remedies. The situation would remain as it has been since the repeal of the third-party harassment protections in 2013.