Lord Young Tables Amendments To Block ‘Banter Ban’ in Rayner’s Employment Rights Bill – Guido Fawkes

Lord Young Tables Amendments To Block ‘Banter Ban’ in Rayner’s Employment Rights Bill

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Rayner’s much-loathed Employment Rights Bill is now in the Lords, with Committee Stage kicking off on 29 April. Free speech warrior and Tory peer Lord Toby Young is already making use of his new role, tabling a series of amendments to block the ‘banter ban’ – Clause 20 – which would require employers to protect staff from third-party “non-sexual harassment”. Translation: employers in the hospitality sector could be legally obliged to police visitors for potentially hurtful words overheard by staff. Cue spiralling legal bills and punters getting booted from venues for uttering anything that might cause offence…

Lord Young’s amendments include: “the definition of ‘harassment’ cannot include conversation or speech involving the expression of an opinion on a political, moral, religious or social matter, provided the opinion is not indecent or grossly offensive,” and that the banter ban should not apply to employers in the hospitality sector, sports venues, or higher education settings. He also highlights a growing legal dilemma: what happens when different protected characteristics under the Equality Act come into conflict? Sticks and stones…

UPDATE: Lord Young tells Guido: “I don’t think Angela Rayner has thought this through. If the banter ban becomes law, members of her staff could sue her for ribald remarks made by her friends that they happen to overhear if they accompany her to a pub or a curry house.”