Why NDAs will no longer silence harassment complaints
An agreement that tries to stop a worker speaking about harassment or discrimination they have suffered is about to lose its force. The Employment Rights Act 2025 makes any such clause void, which changes how businesses settle and, more importantly, how they should handle these complaints in the first place.
The change in brief
The Act voids any provision in a worker-employer agreement that seeks to prevent the worker speaking out about harassment or discrimination they have experienced. A confidentiality clause or non-disclosure agreement can no longer be used to buy someone's silence about being mistreated.
This is targeted, not sweeping. Businesses can still protect genuine commercial secrets and other legitimate confidential information. The specific use that ends is the gagging of a worker over harassment or discrimination they went through.
Why it lands on settlements
Confidentiality clauses have been a routine feature of settlement agreements, where a dispute is resolved and the employee agrees not to talk about it. Where the underlying issue was harassment or discrimination, that enforced silence has attracted sharp criticism for shielding the employer, and sometimes the person responsible, rather than dealing with the conduct.
Once the provision takes effect, an NDA written to silence a worker on those matters simply will not bite. The incentive moves away from managing the narrative and towards resolving the behaviour, which is where a serious business would rather spend its effort.
A clause that stops working
Imagine a business settling a complaint and folding a broad confidentiality clause across the whole matter. To the extent that clause tries to stop the worker speaking about the harassment or discrimination they experienced, it is void, even if the remainder of the agreement holds.
The takeaway is straightforward. A signature on an NDA is no longer a dependable way to draw a line under a harassment or discrimination problem. The behaviour itself is the only thing that closes it.
A signature on an NDA is no longer a dependable way to draw a line under a harassment problem. The behaviour itself is the only thing that closes it.
Prevention over silence
The practical response is to stop treating confidentiality as a lever for these issues and put the effort into the measures that actually prevent them: a clear anti-harassment policy, a reporting route people trust, investigations that are prompt and fair, and follow-through people can see. It is also worth reviewing your template settlement agreements so they do not rely on clauses that are about to be unenforceable.
This sits alongside a related change already dated for October 2026: the strengthened duty to take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment. Across the Act, the same principle runs throughout, which is that prevention and candour are expected to do the work that silence once did.
Jamie HR's role
Jamie HR holds your anti-harassment and grievance policies, the staff acknowledgements that go with them, and the record of how a complaint was investigated and resolved, all in one place. That evidence, showing a business took an issue seriously and acted, carries far more weight than any confidentiality clause ever did.
Turning a workplace into one where problems are dealt with rather than buried is not a box to tick before a deadline. It is worth building now, and the record of having done it is what protects you when a complaint arrives.