Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether his Department has made an assessment on the effect of workplace bullying on trends in the levels of lost days of work per employee in each calendar year.

The Government is clear that bullying and harassment has no place in today’s workplace and we are taking steps to better understand the scale of the problem, including:

• We commissioned IFF research to conduct the forthcoming Employee Rights survey. The survey asked respondents to recount instances of problems with fair treatment at work in the past two years and whether it was bullying and harassment related.

• Acas recently published independent research which estimates the cost of workplace conflict more broadly. This is available at: https://www.acas.org.uk/estimating-the-costs-of-workplace-conflict-report.

• We announced in the summer that it will be taking further action to address persistent issues of sexual harassment in the workplace.

There is guidance available at https://www.gov.uk/workplace-bullying-and-harassment and Acas provides free and impartial advice for employers and employees.