Public Interest Disclosure (Protection) Bill

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 25th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Paul Scully)]

At the start of my remarks, may I associate myself with the words of others in sending my condolences to the family, friends and fellow officers of the police officer who lost his life in the Croydon Windmill Road custody centre? The centre is shared by my borough’s police officers, and I know that many of them will be going home tonight saying, “There but for the grace of God go I”.

I commend the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford) for enabling this debate on a really very important topic. We have heard the passion and the concern of Members on both sides about whistleblowers. She has spoken on previous occasions about the experience of whistleblowers and advocated the need for reform. I have only four minutes, so unfortunately I will not be able to do this important debate the justice it requires, but I want to cover as much as I can directly.

The hon. Lady raised the issue of the burden being on the employee at the tribunal in particular. That is not necessarily the case in many examples, because if the worker can show that their disclosure was protected and that they suffered detriment, the burden shifts to the employer to prove that the detriment was not covered by whistleblowing. That must be a qualifying disclosure, which basically means any information that in the reasonable belief of the worker making the disclosure is in the public interest. This helps to protect against spurious claims and it means, in particular, that personal grievance complaints are not usually covered by these rights.

It is really important that all workers should feel confident that they will be listened to, that actions will be taken to respond to the concerns and that they should never suffer criticism or detriment for speaking up. In response to the 2015 “Freedom to Speak Up” report, the hon. Lady raised the issue of speaking up in the NHS, and we did establish the independent national guardian to help drive positive cultural change across the NHS so that speaking up becomes business as usual.

[Dr Whitford]

Does the Minister accept, however, that the national guardian is not statutory? She sits inside a regulator in the form of the CQC and therefore does not always have the powers she would need.

[Paul Scully]

I appreciate that it is not a statutory position, but I would just say that nothing is perfect. I must preface my remarks by saying that with all these things we need to keep reviewing the effectiveness of the whistleblowing framework within the NHS, as we are continuing to do with whistleblowing in general.

The most recent results, published last year, for the National Guardian Office’s freedom to speak up index, which measures how NHS staff and trusts perceive making disclosures in their organisations, showed that 180 trusts had improved their freedom to speak up index score over the past three years. That does indicate an overall improvement in the speaking up culture, which is so important. More than 19,000 cases were raised with freedom to speak up guardians in trusts between 1 April 2017 and 31 March 2019, and 87% of those who raised issues with freedom to speak up guardians in 2018-19 and gave feedback said they would be prepared to speak up again. However, as I say, there is clearly more we can always look at doing to make sure that this is working effectively.

In the two minutes remaining, I will turn to the provisions of the hon. Lady’s Bill. There are a number of issues that we are going to find difficulties with, but, as she readily admitted, this is a starting point for the discussion. She raised PIDA, which does protect workers from dismissal or detrimental treatment by their employers. On whether we should look at extending the scope of those covered by PIDA—for example, to foster carers, volunteers and public officials that people may be concerned about—we would need to consider expanding the definition of whistleblowing. I think it was my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mary Robinson) who talked about whether we understand the definition of whistleblowing. As we look to specify that, or at whether we should change or expand it, we must look at whether we are going beyond the employment sphere and at what that would mean for enforcement and redress. That is currently for employment tribunals, but we will obviously look at—