The UK government is considering banning British employers from using confidentiality agreements to cover up cases of sexual misconduct and harassment as part of an overhaul of employment rights.

After a series of high-profile cases and years of campaigning by campaigners, ministers are understood to be prepared to back changes to the law to ban the abuse of gag clauses.

Labour's flagship employment rights bill contains no provision for confidentiality agreements, but workers' rights minister Justin Madders said the government was prepared to amend the legislation in the coming months.

Changes to the bill proposed by Lib Dem MP Layla Moran were rejected this week, but the minister told a parliamentary committee the government wanted to "look more carefully at what we can do in this area".

"I have met with a number of interested parties and there are other proposals to address this issue that may be slightly more feasible than what is proposed in the new terms proposed by the Lib Dem spokesperson," Madders said.

A government spokesman said: "This government stands with working people and our landmark Employment Rights Bill will deliver the biggest boost to workers' rights in a generation. We recognize the concerns about the misuse of NDAs to intimidate and suppress concerns about victims of crime or other types of misconduct such as harassment, discrimination and bullying, and are revisiting these issues to determine the right approach.”

Campaigners are pushing for the UK to follow legislative changes already made in Ireland, Canada and the US, where confidentiality agreements cannot prohibit disclosure of sexual harassment, discrimination or bullying unless an employee expressly wishes to do so.

Zelda Perkins, the former personal assistant to jailed Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein and founder of the Can't Buy My Silence movement, says she is increasingly confident the law will change .

She said: "We have high hopes for this bill and hope that this amendment can follow the footsteps of Ireland, Canada, and the United States in making progress in protecting workers' rights. This amendment will not cost the government anything, but it will Make a huge difference and they would be remiss if they didn't take action.

"We are not not trying to prevent settlements from happening. Settlements are legal. They need to happen. We are not trying to prevent secrecy in settlements. What we are trying to change is the balance, the power dynamics, and only if the victim explicitly asks for it To use confidentiality.

"The other part is trying to change the law so that attorneys or in-house counsel use confidentiality to hide harm, (or) even hide that an allegation of harm is actually a crime."

An NDA is a legally binding contract that prohibits either party to the agreement from sharing certain information with outside agents.

The case of Weinstein, who is serving a 16-year prison sentence in the United States for rape, highlights how the rich and powerful abuse their power to protect themselves from criminal charges.

Last year, the Treasury Select Committee backed a ban on the use of NDAs in harassment cases after concluding that their widespread use in the City silenced victims and protected perpetrators who continued to abuse others.

This week, the government confirmed it would enforce a previous government ban on the use of such devices at universities in a bid to silence the voices of victims of bullying, harassment or sexual misconduct.

Moran said this protection needs to be extended to all employees. She said: "I was first approached by young women at Oxford who had been effectively silenced by their university after incidents of sexual harassment. Their university required them to sign a gag clause. The impact was indescribable, and in one case , a young woman couldn't even talk to her GP.

"The Employment Rights Bill is a great opportunity to prevent victims of workplace harassment from being silenced. The government has committed to banning the use of non-disclosure agreements by universities in cases of sexual misconduct, harassment and bullying, and now it is time to extend these protections to other sectors ”