Knife Crime: Violence Reduction Units

Baroness Kramer Excerpts

Tuesday 20th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for that question. Part of the funding for VRUs has to be allocated towards evaluation, but an independent evaluation programme shows that, alongside the Grip, which we have talked about before from this Dispatch Box, there are serious violent hotspot programmes. These are putting additional highly visible police patrols into key locations. The VRU programme is having a statistically significant positive effect, as I referenced earlier. An estimated 3,220 hospital admissions for violent injury have been avoided since funding began in 2019.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

Can I just challenge the Minister? He suggested that in the future, VRUs will depend on match funding and non-governmental sources of money. Surely, violence reduction and the protection of our young people is a core activity and it is entirely right that it should be fully funded by the taxpayer. Other money is for add-ons and extras: this, surely, is not an add-on or an extra.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I was not making the case that it was an add-on or an extra; I was saying that future funding beyond 2025 will be dependent on the needs of the VRUs and the outcome of future spending reviews, and of course the evaluation that is already under way.

Refugees: Notice Period for Home Office Accommodation

Baroness Kramer Excerpts

Monday 18th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I certainly regret the individual circumstances described by the noble Lord and, obviously, we would prefer that not to be the case.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, I wonder if the Minister would actually answer the question from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London. She made the point that sources—I assume they are sources that she respects—inform her that people have seven days in which to find alternative accommodation. Will the Minister look into the examples that she has raised? Surely everything he says means that he at least thinks 28 days is necessary.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

Yes, I think 28 days is necessary, and of course I will look into those. As I say, everyone gets 28 days from the issue of the biometric residence permit.

Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill

Baroness Kramer Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 27th June 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Kramer]

136: After Clause 202, insert the following new Clause—
“Whistleblowing: economic crime
(1) Whistleblowing is defined for the purposes of this section as any disclosure of information suggesting that, in the reasonable opinion of the whistleblower, an economic crime—(a) has occurred,(b) is occurring, or(c) is likely to occur.(2) The Secretary of State must by regulations made by statutory instrument, within the period of 12 months beginning with the day on which this Act is passed, set up a body corporate, to be known as the Office for Whistleblowers, to receive reports of whistleblowing as defined in subsection (1).(3) Regulations under subsection (2) may not be made unless a draft of the statutory instrument containing them has been laid before, and approved by, each House of Parliament. (4) The Office for Whistleblowers must—(a) protect whistleblowers from detriment resulting from their whistleblowing,(b) ensure that disclosures by whistleblowers are investigated, and(c) escalate information and evidence of wrongdoing outside of its remit to such other appropriate authority as the regulations may provide or otherwise as the Office may determine.(5) The objectives of the Office for Whistleblowers are—(a) to encourage and support whistleblowers to make whistleblowing reports,(b) to provide an independent, confidential and safe environment for making and receiving whistleblowing information,(c) to provide information and advice on whistleblowing, and(d) to act on evidence of detriment to the whistleblower according to such guidance as may be set out by the Secretary of State in the regulations.(6) The Office for Whistleblowers must report annually to Parliament on the exercise of its duties, objectives and functions.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to set up an Office for Whistleblowers to receive reports of whistleblowing in relation to economic crime.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, it has been a long day and I discussed this amendment to create an office for whistleblowers extensively in Committee, so I will not cover the detailed ground again. I had intended to bring this amendment back to give an opportunity to the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, but, given the small number in the Chamber at this time, we mutually decided that he should save the information that he has gathered for a larger audience. The noble Lord has, in essence, uncovered information that demonstrates how few whistleblower reports are actually investigated by any of the regulators.

As we have discussed before, whistleblowers have two asks, the first of which is that they are not left to be victims of retaliation. This House has heard how often the careers and lives of whistleblowers are destroyed under the current framework. The only protection the FCA offers is confidentiality for the whistleblower reports it receives; it takes no action if whistleblowers are identified—as they often are, because they have raised concerns internally or because the information itself identifies them. The employment tribunal process, which is limited to employees, costly and often drawn out for years, is no real protection. Correcting this by creating an office for whistleblowers is at the heart of my amendment.

The other ask of any whistleblower is that their tip-off, especially when supported by extensive data, is followed up with an investigation. Many of us assume that this would be the norm, except where the tip is malicious or frivolous. Instead, it is the rare exception, as the noble Lord, Lord Browne, will detail when he next has the opportunity. Following a recent survey of whistleblowers, the FCA told us that it is intending to remedy the lack of follow-up. It admits that it followed up fully on only three cases last year. It also says that it will take time to build the capacity and protocols to make follow-up much more the norm.

This amendment would give the office for whistle- blowers the power to get regulators to follow up tips, rather than brush them in the bin, which has been the norm in virtually every area of public and private life. The House will be fairly shocked when it sees the data assembled by the noble Lord, Lord Browne.

Before I close, I again draw the House’s attention to the difference in performance between the UK and the US. I am not suggesting that the US has it all solved or that we should import the US system, which in many ways would not fit well. However, last year, the Securities and Exchange Commission alone received 783 tips from UK whistleblowers, typically because the UK regulator had decided on no action. My understanding is that, in the US, tips means that all those cases will be followed up intensely.

Last weekend, I was stopped in the street by a whistleblower who has received no action by the FCA. He told me that he has been invited to fly to the US— I believe he is there now—because the SEC’s initial investigation, based on his tip, is opening up one of the most significant cases of bank fraud in a decade. It should be an exception for a UK whistleblower to believe that the only place that they can go to get proper investigation is the United States; unfortunately, it is the rule in financial services. For that reason, among others, I beg to move.

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

I do not wish to detain the House long. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, on her amendment and her Private Member’s Bill trying to bring this matter to the House’s attention. She is absolutely right that it is really important, and I wish that we could put a measure of this nature into the Bill—whether this one exactly or something similar.

It should not be a career-ending decision to try to do the right thing. To try to alert the country to a major issue that may be going on within our corporate sector should not be something that one is frightened of. Sadly, at the moment, that is so.

I also congratulate the APPG on Anti-Corruption and Responsible Tax, which has done brilliant work in helping brief the House on the Bill. Finally, I thank my noble friend the Minister, who I know has tried so hard to make this a better Bill. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer. I fully support her amendment, but I am sad that it is not going to carry tonight.

--- Later in debate ---

In conclusion, the Government have welcomed the continued constructive engagement on this topic. It is important that we do not prejudice the outcomes of the ongoing review. When that has concluded, the Government will consider next steps and whether any changes may be needed to the framework. I am grateful to the noble Baroness for tabling the amendment, in the sense that it encourages further debate, but I ask her to withdraw it.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, I thank both the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, who is so active in this cause, and the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, for the statements they made. I thank the Minister too for reinforcing the steps that the Government are taking to review the whistleblowing framework. We have real hopes that that will achieve a lot of the goals that we have in mind.

I want to reassure the Minister on one point. A canard that is so often raised, and I have addressed it before, is the cost of an office of the whistleblower. Within the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Office of the Whistleblower is regarded not as a cost centre but as a profit centre. Its capacity to pursue wrongdoing has led to such a level of fines as a consequence that over the past 10 years it has passed back in excess of $7 billion to the US treasury. It is certainly an institution that more than pays for itself, because it brings wrongdoers to justice, leads to financial penalties and not only covers its own costs but contributes to taxpayers’ benefit, as it should.

However, I will of course, under these circumstances, at this late hour, and with many thanks, agree to treat this as additional pressure on the Government to further a sense of urgency for the review. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 136 withdrawn.

Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill

Baroness Kramer Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 11th May 2023 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Baroness Kramer]

106EC: After Clause 187, insert the following new Clause—
“Register of beneficial ownership: freeports
Each Freeport Governance Body required—(a) to undertake reasonable efforts to verify the beneficial owner of businesses operating within the Freeport tax site, and(b) to make this information available to the Commissioners for His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, law enforcement agencies and other public bodiesmust also register this information with the registrar for public inspection.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would require governing bodies of freeports to make the information they are required to collect about beneficial ownership of companies operating within the freeport available to the public.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, I have two amendments in this group. The first addresses freeports. I think even the Government recognise that freeports are catnip to criminals and money launderers. We discussed the issue pretty extensively in relation to the National Insurance Contributions Bill, the piece of legislation prior to this which gave an opportunity to discuss freeports. The Government made it clear that they were very conscious that there were potential issues of criminality around freeports that we had to take exceedingly seriously. I am glad of that, but I have still been waiting for replies to help me understand what kinds of actions will be taken to minimise that risk.

Since that period of discussion, we know that at least one of the major freeports will be under the Dubai Ports World regime, which already has ownership of major docks in London. Its various purchases of port facilities around the world have typically been very controversial. Of course, the most recent controversy in the UK occurred when Dubai ports summarily fired 800 British-based sailors, I think by Zoom, to replace them with much cheaper agency staff. The law has since been changed to ensure that there cannot be a repetition of this kind of behaviour.

I would make the point that the kind of people who are attracted to freeports tend to be those who absolutely push the law to the limit, even when they do not go beyond it. We have so many examples from around the world where the players in various different freeports have gone well beyond it. Again, I do not want to spend time on this because we did so on the National Insurance Contributions Bill, but because there are no customs declarations, customs inspections or tax-related declarations in freeports, the normal mechanisms that provide data and direct monitoring and enforcement agencies are simply not available.

My understanding from what we have been told by the Government and which we have certainly read is that the entities that own freeports are to make a reasonable effort to identify the beneficial owners of facilities within their port complex and, in effect, make a register of that to pass on to enforcement agencies. Nowhere is that in statute, so the first two paragraphs of this amendment would put that into primary legislation.

More important is the third part of the amendment, which is that that register should be available “for public inspection”. In all the debates and discussions on Companies House and the British regime for cleaning up business in every kind of way, going back to George Osborne, we have heard that transparency is important: that the sunlight of a public register enables not just enforcement agencies to see what is happening within the complex world of foreign ownership but civic groups, people with an interest and a much wider population—a phrase I sometimes use in relation to whistleblowing is a citizens’ army—to look in and therefore be much more effective in countering abuse and misuse.

As I asked in the national insurance contributions debate: why is the register that is going to be put together for freeports not to be made public? If I understood the answer that I got, it was, “Oh, this will all be dealt with when we get to Companies House legislation”. Well, here we are: that economic crime Bill 2, with Companies House at the heart of it, but I cannot see anything that deals with making that register of beneficial owners in freeports public, nor can I understand that anyone going to Companies House and searching through the information would in any easy way be able to extract from that whether the various declarations of beneficial ownership were from companies that were engaged in freeports in any way—it did not seem that that was a required part of any of the discussion. I would really like the Government to bring us up to date on this and, because they recognise that there are real risks both of criminality and of money laundering, to have some answers. I hope that they have re-examined their determination not to make public the register that will be held and will explain to us why. We are dealing with Companies House legislation, so the answer cannot be, “Just wait for that”.

--- Later in debate ---

I ask the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, to withdraw Amendment 106EC and not move Amendment 106ED.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, I suspect your Lordships will guess that I am not terribly happy. I will be perfectly happy if the Government go away and clean up my drafting; I do not pretend to be at all expert at it. The kind of niggles that the Minister identified could, I am sure, be dealt with extremely efficiently and quickly by his team.

The Minister raised an issue that we have heard about before: the cost of having a transparent register. However, if all this data is being gathered anyway, the cost of putting it into a public format is de minimis. We are not asking for the collection of all kinds of additional information; we are asking for transparency on the information that the Government keep saying they are definitely going to collect anyway. It is the public’s ability to view it that matters.

Can the Minister help me with one issue? He said that, actually, one can see all this just by going to Companies House. That is not the feedback I have had from officials, although I accept that my understanding could have been wrong. They said that, when you look at the register in Companies House, you will never know where to begin because you have to have a name to start with in order to track down the company; of course, you do not know the name. If the Minister can help me through that process, that would be extremely helpful. Will he also publish his advice? Civil society groups all over the world are keen to be able to carry out these activities but, so far as I can gather, they are currently completely befuddled. They do not know about the access that the Minister implied is present so, if he could do that, I would be grateful. Further, if he looks at this issue and finds out that, actually, this does not work and outsiders cannot get a look at the system, will he go back and look at providing transparency?

I base this point on policies from the Minister’s own Government—at least, from George Osborne’s time as Chancellor—in that transparency is thought to be absolutely crucial as a key pillar of cleaning up the complex, difficult world of financial services, which always has such potential for corruption because of the amount of money that is available in abusing the system. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 106EC withdrawn.

Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill

Baroness Kramer Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 9th May 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

The noble Lord makes an important point. I cannot answer it, because it is not an area over which I have any direct responsibility, as he can probably tell. However, it would be beneficial somehow to design a mechanism which would allow greater oversight. I do not know what that would look like, because there are risks associated with it. If the targets of any particular sanctions regime became aware in advance, we know what would happen. It is not an easy problem to solve, but in principle what the noble Lord has just said makes a lot of sense. If there is a way of doing so and injecting a bit more transparency—but not too much, for all the obvious reasons—I would certainly support that.

It is also worth saying that sanctions are just one tool that we have. For example, in relation to Hong Kong, as noble Lords know, we opened the doors of this country to a very large number from Hong Kong who were looking for safety and a home, where their fundamental rights would be respected. We created a bespoke immigration channel and suspended the UK- Hong Kong extradition treaty indefinitely. We extended the arms embargo that has applied to mainland China since 1989 to include Hong Kong—and so on. This is one tool in our arsenal; it is not the only tool.

I make one further point in relation to something raised by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, on the distinction between freezing and seizing. While I cannot provide him with a detailed answer—that is going to have to come from another Minister—I can tell him that the Government are sympathetic to proposals to use frozen funds to assist in the reconstruction of Ukraine following the bombardment that it has received from Vladimir Putin. The Government are actively looking at options continually to improve transparency around those assets that are held by—

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

Just for clarification, the Minister said that there was an intention to use frozen funds for the reconstruction of Ukraine. I fully support that idea, but is it legal without a seizure?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I have said that there are “proposals”. It is something that has been proposed, but I am not sure that I can use the word “intention”. If there is a way in which those frozen assets can be used to rebuild Ukraine, it is something that the UK Government will look very seriously at—but it is not something that the UK alone will be doing.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Kramer]

92: After Clause 187, insert the following new Clause—
“Whistleblowing: economic crime
(1) Whistleblowing is defined for the purposes of this section as any disclosure of information suggesting that, in the reasonable opinion of the whistleblower, an economic crime—(a) has occurred,(b) is occurring, or(c) is likely to occur.(2) The Secretary of State must by regulations made by statutory instrument, within the period of 12 months beginning with the day on which this Act is passed, set up a body corporate, to be known as the Office for Whistleblowers, to receive reports of whistleblowing as defined in subsection (1). (3) Regulations under subsection (2) may not be made unless a draft of the statutory instrument containing them has been laid before, and approved by, each House of Parliament.(4) The Office for Whistleblowers must—(a) protect whistleblowers from detriment resulting from their whistleblowing,(b) ensure that disclosures by whistleblowers are investigated, and(c) escalate information and evidence of wrongdoing outside of its remit to such other appropriate authority as the regulations may provide or otherwise as the Office may determine.(5) The objectives of the Office for Whistleblowers are—(a) to encourage and support whistleblowers to make whistleblowing reports,(b) to provide an independent, confidential and safe environment for making and receiving whistleblowing information,(c) to provide information and advice on whistleblowing, and(d) to act on evidence of detriment to the whistleblower according to such guidance as may be set out by the Secretary of State in the regulations.(6) The Office for Whistleblowers must report annually to Parliament on the exercise of its duties, objectives and functions.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to set up an Office for Whistleblowers to receive reports of whistleblowing in relation to economic crime.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, I understand that the noble Earl, Lord Minto, will reply for the Government on this amendment, which gives me the opportunity to welcome him to his role on the Government Front Bench. We shall look forward to hearing him—indeed, I hope to hear very positive responses from the noble Earl. This is also my opportunity to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, who join me in proposing Amendment 92. I hope that we will hear from both of them.

My amendment is similar to amendments that I brought before your Lordships’ House in previous Bills in that it sets up an office of the whistleblower in relation to economic crime, which must support whistleblowers, protect them from detriment and ensure that disclosures are investigated and acted on. I will not go into a lot of detail because I have done so often in this House and we are under pressure of time today. However, whistleblowing legislation in the UK is badly out of date. The Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 provides for confidential disclosure by whistleblowers who are “workers”, which is quite a difficult term. It means employees but not all—it may include some contractors—and there are many people you would think of as being workers who do not count. That group of workers can make disclosures to prescribed people, in this case primarily the financial regulator.

However, of course, most whistleblowers have spoken out long before they make a formal report, having already alerted colleagues and management to wrongdoing. Some firms have decent internal whistleblowing reporting systems, but many do not; for many, it is a system on paper and not a system in fact. Indeed, in many cases, the information disclosed by a whistleblower, even if anonymous, exposes their identity because of the few people who would have access to that particular knowledge.

The consequence is that many whistleblowers are subject to retaliation. Many lose their careers, or, if they are outside contractors or clients, their businesses. If they are workers, they can challenge in an employment tribunal. However, I tell your Lordships now—the Minister can confirm it if he wishes to look—that that will cost them their savings and all they can borrow from their friends; it costs something between £44,000 to £100,000 to be able to bring a case, and of course there is no legal aid. It will drag on for years; we have had cases going on for seven years, finding steadily in favour of the whistleblower but constantly appealed by the institution or employer on the other side.

In the end, most whistleblowers settle and sign non- disclosure agreements. People break down and their careers shudder to a halt as they are informally and very effectively blacklisted. Of course, there is no formal blacklisting, but word of mouth through an industry essentially bars most of them from any future opportunity.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

I do not know whether it exists; if it does, I shall find out and let the noble Lord know. I think it must exist, but we will have to see. The other important issue was the expense of going to a tribunal, which is a very serious issue. My understanding is that the review will certainly take that into consideration.

Not long after taking office, my ministerial colleague the parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Kevin Hollinrake MP, committed during the Public Bill Committee in the other place to get this review moving. We have followed up on this commitment and continued to deliver on whistleblowing policy. On 17 October last year, the Government laid before Parliament the most recent update to the prescribed persons order. This came into force in December and is a significant improvement to the framework, adding six new bodies and all Members of the Scottish Parliament to the list of bodies and individuals that a worker can blow the whistle to. I hope that demonstrates to noble Lords that the Government are very serious about whistle- blowing.

I welcome the continued constructive engagement on this topic, and I know that Minister Hollinrake has valued the discussions to date with parliamentarians and organisations representing whistleblowers in preparing for this review. However, this amendment could create a confused landscape for whistleblowing, potentially at considerable cost. It would also pre-empt the ongoing review of the existing framework. I therefore respectfully ask the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, to withdraw it.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this superb debate. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans for giving those personal examples. They bring home to people the experience that we are trying to deal with, so that people can relate to them and ask “Would I be brave enough? Would I let this happen to me and my family?” and understand why whistleblower protection is so important.

There were some specific questions. First, if ever I have seen a red herring, this question of cost must be it. In the United States, the Office of the Whistleblower has turned into a profit centre for the US Treasury, because the number of cases it can drive through and the consequences of remuneration, fines and compensation have meant that it not only covers its costs but can return substantial amounts to the Treasury. The Minister is most welcome to get the latest figures on those. I do not have them in front of me, but he will be able to access them very easily. So cost is not the issue.

We are often told that we will need an enormous, monstrous octopus of an office. That is not what we are talking about. We need a place where people can go and know that their disclosure is absolutely safe. As other noble Lords have said, including the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, people want to know that there is genuine follow-up on the issue. He asked how the language of my amendment on investigation would work. It would work by acting through the regulators. I have had many a conversation with regulators and, interestingly, they are all desperate for something like the Office of the Whistleblower, because dealing with whistleblowing is completely outside their standard remit—how they structure themselves and hire their personnel. This creates that exchange with the Office of the Whistleblower as a director of the information to the regulator. That dynamic gives us the assurance that there will be action. The office can chivvy if action does not follow.

The noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, also asked how the office of the whistleblower would protect individuals from detriment. This is a very abbreviated amendment because it has to come within the scope of the Bill. My Private Member’s Bill deals with the issue in far greater detail, but the logic of it is basically that, when the office determines that a whistleblower has received detriment, it will be able to order the employer—although this applies to all whistleblowers, so it is a broader picture—to provide compensation. However, if that employer or company decided that the compensation was inappropriate, it could take the office of the whistle- blower to the First-tier Tribunal. But in that case, facing each other, you would have the institution of the office of the whistleblower and the institution of the employer or organisation on the other side. You would not have the David and Goliath situation of a poor, lonely whistleblower who has already spent all their savings and is borrowing money to continue their case facing an employer which can afford to pay for the best counsel in the country and continue to drag out the entire process on appeal after appeal. So it changes that dynamic.

I refer noble Lords back to my Private Member’s Bill. I have always said that I am not precious about exactly how all this is done, but the core principles of it need to be seized and taken. I am sad that the Minister again uses the term “workers”, because there are so many people who blow the whistle, including contractors, suppliers and customers, and they are all often subject to retaliation and blacklisting—and that matters.

I think that I have covered most of the questions that were asked, but I would be glad to continue this conversation off-piste rather than take up more time in Committee today. This is an absolutely fundamental issue. One opportunity in this Bill is to echo how it has been done in the United States, where the Office of the Whistleblower is set within a financial services regulator structure, and this amendment would enable that to happen—or there is the alternative to going to a much broader office of the whistleblower. When you talk to the regulators dealing with education, the National Health Service, nuclear waste or whatever else, they will all say, “For goodness sake, can you take this burden of dealing with whistleblowers off my shoulders? I really need a professional and focused organisation sucking in this information and making sure that I get what I need to act as a regulator”. I can assure the Minister that, while none of them says it publicly, he will find that, privately, the regulators are very much in support of this kind of arrangement. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 92 withdrawn.

National Security Bill

Baroness Kramer Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 18th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, I again find myself the only Back-Bencher of my party in the Chamber. This time I cannot claim to be speaking on their behalf, although last time I intervened I felt that I had sufficient support from Labour Members who were not here to be able to speak at large on behalf of the Back-Benchers.

I have an entirely technical point. My noble friend Lord Coaker has tabled an amendment which he described to the House and in the Marshalled List as being intended to probe

“to what extent the Bill furthers the government’s objective to update the Official Secrets Act 1989.”

Of course, in Schedule 16, at the end of the Bill, we see what the Government are doing about repealing—or otherwise—previous Acts, going right back to the Official Secrets Act 1911, as my noble friend Lord Coaker mentioned.

As I say, this is a technical matter. I do not ask for it to be dealt with this evening, but perhaps the Minister’s officials and advisers could look at this. When the Bill was before the House of Commons, the Law Commission gave oral evidence and then submitted written evidence. In that written evidence, it took up the issue of the Official Secrets Acts 1911 and 1920 and commented on their provisions. The Law Commission said, in its recommendation 9:

“The offence of doing an act preparatory to espionage should be retained. Save for that, section 7 of the Official Secrets Act 1920 should be repealed.”


If we turn to Schedule 16, we learn that the Bill proposes to repeal those Acts in their entirety. The question is, therefore, why the written report of the Law Commission is not being followed. There are great complications when you start having to sew old legislation into modern legislation, and as I have complained before, the legislative process has become too complicated. This is not something to be answered now. The Minister can be relieved of having to give any explanation at the moment, but I wondered if it could be carefully looked at.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, for his supportive words on the key aspects of my Amendment 120. Obviously, I have not participated in the broader issues of the Bill, but I think I can say on behalf of my colleagues that we are very impressed by his amendment. The probing character of an amendment, certainly in Committee, is a very important tool to try to get responses from the Government.

Given the late hour, I want to focus specifically on my Amendment 120. We heard at Second Reading—in a sense, it has been repeated at various points in Committee; I have been following this a bit in Hansard—how concerned former leading members of the intelligence community are about the consequences of public disclosure. I think the Government have echoed that. There is one very good way to avoid public disclosure, and that is to have an excellent whistleblowing regime and process. That is exactly what my Amendment 120 seeks to do. I understand that my amendment is not ideally drafted, but my goal is to generate a proper and, I hope, fruitful discussion. That is one of the reasons I am rather sad that those former leading members of the intelligence community are not in their places today, but perhaps they will pick up this issue afterwards.

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

They are not here this evening; they were here earlier.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

Yes, they were here earlier.

My preference would be to create an overarching office of the whistleblower covering all public and private activity, as I have proposed in my Private Member’s Bill. However, failing that, I suggest that much more immediate action could take place within the security and intelligence services.

Whistleblowers are essential in any and every field of activity. People err and power is abused, and whistle- blowing is both the best deterrent and often a necessary step to cure. But organisations so often welcome whistleblowers in their speeches, and perhaps in very general policy terms, but not in the practical reality.

I have to keep a good distance from sources because here in the House of Lords we do not have the power to protect their confidentiality. But over and again, the message comes that, in the security and intelligence services, various schemes—not all, but various and significant ones—are actually dysfunctional. Retaliation happens and is not exceptional, in the form of career destruction and the threat of the use of the Official Secrets Act—it may be entirely inappropriate, but it is a very frightening threat. Follow-up and proper investigation rarely happen. Instead, wagons are circled and retaliation begins.

In this, I have to say that the intelligence agencies are really no different from so many other parts of the public sector. We have to look only at the experience that the Metropolitan Police is currently going through to realise that there is a certain inbred complacency in many organisations. They are certain if you ask them that they have excellent processes in place, but then some event triggers and exposes problems that have lain underneath for a long time.

At Second Reading, I gave an example of a whistle- blower who spoke out using the existing systems to expose evidence that key equipment was being sourced from a hostile foreign power. That person is still suffering the price of a destroyed career.

Also at Second Reading, in explaining that he had worked with the intelligence community for more than 40 years, the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts—I think quite unwittingly—gave another, even more serious illustration of the dysfunctional nature of the system. Referring to the earlier speech that day of the noble Lord, Lord Tyrie, and his reminder that in regard to extraordinary rendition

“Britain appears to have been involved in at least 70 cases, according to the 2018 ISC report”,

the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts said,

“in my experience, the men and women of the intelligence community were profoundly shocked by the revelations of what had happened in those fraught months and years after 9/11.”—[Official Report, 6/12/22; cols. 137-39.]

I am sure that some people, including the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, were profoundly shocked, but with at least 70 cases, a significant number of people, including those at senior level, must have known, knew it was wrong and either decided or were persuaded to do nothing, because of misguided loyalty, a culture of cover-up and fear that retaliation would destroy their careers.

Speaking out is frightening, disloyalty being the least of the accusations that typically follow. Each person to pluck up the courage to speak out needs to know exactly who they can go to to speak safely and how they can initially do it—most of them wish to do so anonymously initially. They cannot turn for information or advice to a colleague, as that exposes who they are. They cannot go to a senior person, as that exposes who they are. They should never look on the intranet or internet because that is traceable. Even in the health services, nurses use burner phones to report wrong behaviour. A whistleblower has to be absolutely confident that the person they speak to has both the will and, even more importantly, the authority to follow up and investigate an act. That is what whistleblowers look for.

However, it is much more than that. Confidentiality, which is often seen as the greatest protection for a whistleblower, is almost impossible to sustain once an investigation process starts, because the issue and the information themselves direct anyone who is interested to the identity of the whistleblower. So it is absolutely crucial that any person or body that a whistleblower goes to can provide them with protection or, where things go wrong and there is retaliation, with redress.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Evans of Weardale (CB)]

My Lords, I must confess to being rather puzzled by some of the detail in Amendment 120 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer. When I got to proposed new subsection (4), I assumed that the office was intended to be a regulatory body ensuring that the whistleblowing arrangements with regard to national security were appropriate; however, it subsequently became clear in proposed new paragraph (b) that it was intended to be the whistle- blowing channel. Those seems like slightly different roles to me.

I am also puzzled as to why there is a proposal here for a whistleblowing channel that is in fact very narrow. It relates only

“to the commission of an offence under this Act”.

I would have thought that, if there was a need for a whistleblowing channel—

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

Perhaps I can help the noble Lord. Amendments must be written to be in scope; it is sometimes quite limiting.

[Lord Evans of Weardale (CB)]

I thank the noble Baroness very much for that clarification; in that case, the amendment certainly needs some amendment itself.

I am also puzzled as to the route proposed that any disclosure, particularly from one of the intelligence agencies, can go to any public authority. Again, that seems a surprising route for a whistleblowing channel for somebody in the intelligence and security agencies.

More particularly, and more importantly, I absolutely fail to recognise the culture of cover-up that the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, cites. Having worked in the Security Service for 33 years, I am confident in saying that, far from there being a culture of cover-up, there was in fact a strong willingness to speak up, as far as I could see. There was strong and, at times, fairly heated internal debate on some of the ethical matters that have been cited in this debate. So I do not believe that the characterisation of the intelligence agencies we have just heard in any sense accurate. Although the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, gave the complete list of everybody to whom a member of the agencies could go, I think that almost anybody in the agencies would recognise their ability to go to the internal ethics counsellor—a role that plays an important part in actively encouraging debate of these issues—who has a direct right of access to the director-general of the day; I am sure that that would still be the case. That role has now extended from the Security Service to the other intelligence agencies. Also, it was clear and straightforward how you obtained the contact details for the external counsellor who acted as a whistleblowing channel directly outside the service. Of course, that was put in place specifically because of previous concerns that there was no such provision, and it was reflected in the legislation of the day.

I feel that the detail of this amendment is not clear —certainly not to me. The need for this amendment has not been made clear, in my view, because it is based on a rather misleading characterisation of the internal culture of the intelligence services. In my experience, there has been considerable focus on ethical matters and the ability internally to debate those.

Banks: Forged Customer Signatures

Baroness Kramer Excerpts

Monday 16th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The noble Lord makes a number of fairly grave and unfounded allegations. The relevant experts in the NECC have been assessing the extensive material provided; he knows how extensive it was. The NECC has extended its review as new material has been supplied, but, recognising the complexity of fraud cases, I hope that all noble Lords will understand the length of time that this has taken. As I say, the NECC is in the process of notifying the complainants at the moment.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister recognise that both the regulators and the enforcement agencies are seriously underresourced in tackling wrongdoing in the financial services sector? Will he support our proposals to distribute the fines from financial services-related prosecutions to the regulators and agencies in order to beef up their capacity?

National Security Bill

Baroness Kramer Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 6th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, I do not normally speak in national security debates, and I bow to the far greater expertise of everybody else involved today, but I could not let this Bill pass without intervening to call for the insertion of a clause to provide proper protection for whistleblowers speaking out in the public interest. Some in the House may know that I focus on the issue of whistleblowers across a wide range of activities.

I recognise that this is a subset of the much broader issue of public interest disclosures, but I would argue, and would say this directly to the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, that where there are human beings there will be wrongdoing, and where there is power there will be abuse. It is rarely exposed unless a whistleblower brings it to the surface and takes the risks associated with that.

The noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, said that whistleblowers could go to various individuals to make a protected disclosure. Let me say to her that of the three she named I could not identify one who could do what the whistleblower wants most: to guarantee an investigation of the issue raised. She mentioned the ISC, and we have heard now from both former and present members of the ISC that it is extraordinarily difficult for that body to access the information needed to carry out an investigation.

Therefore, without the mechanisms in place that link the whistleblower through to a process of investigation, most whistleblowers are going to hold back and decide not to speak out, and I would argue that that is very much to the detriment of the national interest.

However, it is also vital to protect whistleblowers, and none of the three powers that the noble Baroness mentioned can provide that protection. They can provide confidentiality but, frankly, keeping a whistleblower’s identity confidential is near impossible. The character of the information alone usually identifies who has spoken out. In addition, people who see something going wrong mention it to colleagues, managers and others whom they work with, and it becomes very evident very quickly, in almost every case, who is the relevant whistleblower. Existing legislation that requires going through an employment tribunal fails whistleblowers extensively. I will not go through that argument in detail today—I have in other places. Of course, even at its best, it only actually covers workers, whereas whistleblowing comes from a wide variety of people: suppliers, contractors and temporary staff—all kinds of people who are engaged around a process and see behaviour that they know needs to be called out. My fundamental argument is that every day that there is not adequate protection for whistleblowers is a day when somebody sees something that they should call out and decides that the price of doing so is too high.

If you are in some sector such as finance, the National Health Service or even the Metropolitan Police, and you speak out and there is retaliation against you, at least that is only losing your job or perhaps being blacklisted for your entire career. However, once this happens in the context of national security, the whistleblowers I hear from—I am careful not to get their names, because I am not a prescribed person, but I am aware of their experiences at second and third hand—are usually told that they will face retaliation through the mechanism of the Official Secrets Act, which, as everyone in the House will know, carries criminal penalties.

I decided to cite one case, and I was careful in choosing it so I do not expose any whistleblower to retaliation, which currently is a real fear. This is far from an isolated case. I am aware in general terms of the case of a whistleblower working for a subcontractor to a global brand, cleared to the highest level, who tried to disclose that work was being subcontracted to a hostile power, with serious national security consequences. The whistleblower was of course fired, threatened with lifelong career destruction and with the Official Secrets Act. After a long delay, a period of complete unemployment for the whistleblower and a bogus investigation by the contractor, the message eventually, through the whistleblower’s constant persistence, reached the right people inside the Ministry of Defence, and I understand that a proper investigation is now under way. However, obviously the whistleblower has suffered huge detriment and there seems no possibility that that will ever be reversed. I suspect the public will never know the harm done in just that one particular case. What I think has shocked many of us is that this process seems to be regarded as “just to be expected”, and in this wider sector of national security, the various mechanisms in place available to whistleblowers such as helplines are, frankly, regarded as anything but helplines. To me, it is totally unacceptable not to provide that protection for those who make disclosures which are fundamentally in the national and the public interest.

In the Commons, Kevan Jones MP and eight others attempted to introduce a public interest defence, but it was not even debated. However, I hope in this House, with its very different set of rules, we will be able to try to craft a series of amendments that will allow at least a detailed debate.

I have in Committee a Private Members’ Bill, the Protection for Whistleblowing Bill, that will deal with many of these issues. I will not go through that Bill today but, frankly, I have relatively limited hope of the Government taking up this Bill, even though every time that I raise this with Ministers, in area after area, they acknowledge that protection for whistleblowers is exceedingly limited, that something needs to be done and that there will be a review, but that it will be in due course.

I recently joined the All-Party Group on Extraordinary Rendition, which made me aware of the case of Jagtar Singh Johal. Again, with that whistleblower experience, I looked with real concern at Clauses 82 to 86. When you spend as much time as I do in dealing with attempts to gag disclosure of wrongful behaviour, you spot the tricks. Here they are, in clause after clause, limiting access to civil justice for redress, deliberately using sweeping language to deny legal aid, and none of that adding to the safety of the UK but rather adding to the safety of those who have abused their position.

I thank the same organisations that perhaps spoke with the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza—Retrieve, Redress, Freedom from Torture, Survivors Speak OUT, Rights and Security International, and OMEGA—for the high-quality briefings that they have provided. I am a novice in this area, but I will push the issue of protection for whistleblowers. It is fundamental in a democratic society.

Corruption in the United Kingdom

Baroness Kramer Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, I join those congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, on obtaining this debate. I wish it had a much wider audience. It really ought to be taking place on the Floor of the House because corruption, particularly in political life, impacts everything we do. I listened to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, talk about the VIP lane that we were all aware of as a fast lane for friends and family to get PPE contracts during Covid. For many of us, that was almost the nadir of a collapse in standards. As we look far more broadly, every speaker so far has raised issues of that kind of corruption, all the way through even to our procedures, which now allow this structure of skeleton Bills and policy disguised in the form of statutory instruments so that it is not subject to refusal or amendment. So many areas need to be tackled.

In this country we are particularly vulnerable because we tend to be quite complacent. We believe that we, the British, may have our problems but we are so much better than everybody else. Having some real debate in the House, with major attendance, might persuade people that instead of resting on what we perceive as our historical and iconic laurels, we need to examine what we do in almost every aspect. I will pick up the focus that the noble Lords, Lord Sikka and Lord Evans, pursued and the other speakers touched on: the financial services sector. It is the one I know best.

The right reverend Prelate talked about the way in which we ignored the London laundromat. We tut-tutted about it but knew that oligarch kleptocrat money was flowing into the City and that it was a major facilitator, but until the invasion of Ukraine the Government were not particularly interested in taking any action. The legislation in the first round of the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill had been sitting in an in-tray for at least a decade. It was ready to go and might, had it been introduced in time, have had a more significant impact in stemming that ongoing development of corruption.

When we passed the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill, at the heart of which, noble Lords will remember, was the creation of a register at Companies House of overseas beneficial owners of property in the UK—one of the main mechanisms for washing dirty money—we put in place no meaningful verification system. I understand that there is some strengthening in the economic crime Bill version two, but I want to ask the Minister about that, because I am extremely worried that it seems to outsource to third parties the role of providing verification. I am not clear that there is command and control with the registrar of Companies House or whether the registrar has been given the resources to make sure that verification, which is critical, is effectively enforced.

I am focusing on the registration scheme as a narrow example. It relies heavily on enforcement. This issue was well described by the noble Lord, Lord Evans, in a broader context, because that enforcement has to come from the National Crime Agency. It has 118 staff in total to investigate financial crime despite the complexity of the issues. Frankly, the power of the enablers—the lawyers, accountants and property developers, all of whom are involved in money laundering—is often overlooked. They are capable of fighting back against any enforcement agency and making life extremely difficult. I do not understand why—perhaps the Minister can tell me—we do not say that at least some portion, if not all, of the money that comes from fines, forfeitures and confiscations of the wrongdoers should not flow back to the National Crime Agency, the Serious Fraud Office and even, when they are engaged with it, to local police forces because we might finally have a sufficiently funded resource to take action against corruption. We must also focus on those enablers. I do not understand why we do not have a failure to prevent anywhere that I can find in the economic crime Bill. They must be dealt with, and they must understand that they will pay if they engage in facilitating corrupt behaviour.

We also have a problem at the regulatory level, and again I will focus on the financial services area. Frankly, the Financial Conduct Authority and even to some extent the PRA are a busted flush when it comes to any kind of enforcement. I have two quick examples. One is HBOS. I sat on the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards and listened to weeks of evidence on the collapse of HBOS. It collapsed because senior management, including the last two CEOs, dropped credit standards to a ridiculous point so that they could grow their loan portfolio like mad, which of course resulted in very high bonuses in their take-home packets. They also funded the bank in the overnight markets, giving it no stability. The FCA and PRA came out this summer with a complete whitewash of the senior management. Obviously, a few junior people have been thrown to the wolves, but the senior management has walked away and has not being declared unfit. In the Libor scandal, which no one ever dares refer to these days, ordinary borrowers and businesses across the globe—because something like 60% or 70% of all lending was priced off Libor globally—will have last quadrillions of pounds, dollars, yen and other currencies in lending because false submissions were made to establish the Libor benchmark. Those submissions were deliberately falsified to enhance bank profits and the bonuses of senior bankers, and no one at senior level has ever been declared unfit as a consequence of all of that.

I am out of time but there is so much to be done. I would have liked to address whistleblowers, who are very badly treated under our current system, and I will say just one quick thing before I sit down. I ask the Minister to read my Private Member’s Bill on creating an office of the whistleblower to champion and protect whistleblowers. It is a mirror of a Bill produced by a member of his party down in the House of Commons. If we do not act on those people who are the citizen’s army that deters crime, we will never come to grips with the corruption that exists.

Intelligence: Russia

Baroness Kramer Excerpts

Monday 31st January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I think he kind of talked about both: visas and money coming into this country. He will know from legislation that I brought in previously that, through unexplained wealth orders and things like that, we are doing everything we can to stop the flow of illicit finance in this country. I cannot comment further on golden visas, except to say that we are very, very careful about the visas we issue and the people we let into this country.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, speaking of legislation that has not appeared, will the Minister acknowledge, as other Ministers have, that the Bill providing for a public register of the beneficial owners of property in the UK has been ready to go for weeks but has not yet been introduced in this House? Will she also confirm that the intelligence services have no hope of dealing with what is known as the London laundromat until that Bill becomes law, when civic society across the globe and activists can assist the intelligence services in getting to the bottom of these chains of ownership that lead, in the end, to oligarchs and kleptocrats?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

The noble Baroness illustrates some of the complexities around state activity. She is absolutely right—I recall her being involved in the Bill—and the Government have made a start on this. We have things such as unexplained wealth orders in place, and we will be bringing forward legislation to deal with the various threats that are impeding the rule of law and our economy.