Protection for Whistleblowing Bill [HL]

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Friday 2nd December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I begin, like other noble Lords, by offering my heartfelt thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, for what the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, rightly described as her persistence in championing this vital issue and to Mary Robinson MP in another place for her efforts. I say “heartfelt” because this cross-party Bill is personal. I was a whistleblower without the protection that this Bill would provide. It was one of the most frightening experiences of my life—and I have certainly had a few because of my disability.

I will never forget the sense of isolation and self-doubt that threatened to overwhelm me—until I googled “whistleblowing” and came across the wonderful Cathy James, the then chief executive of the UK’s premier whistleblowing charity, now called Protect, and her equally helpful colleague, Francesca West. Within minutes of calling their helpline, I was assured that the situation I was describing did merit my concerns.

As recorded in Hansard, I shared my deeply unpleasant experience with noble Lords in our debate on civil society and lobbying on 8 September 2016, so I do not intend to rehearse the details today. However, I will reiterate that I would never have believed that the behaviours I witnessed in the charity sector were possible had I not seen and experienced them myself. Bullying pressure was applied by a senior director to try to force me to approve a payment from charitable funds, which I made clear in writing would be unethical. The wholesale and expensive restructuring of the organisation I was working at resulted in a swathe of thoroughly decent former officers from different wings of the Armed Forces effectively being removed from their roles as charity managers because they had had the temerity to stand up to the civvies who had the whip hand on the charity’s executive board. This was done so cynically and systematically, with these former senior officers required to reapply for their jobs after years of excellent appraisals, only to be told that they had failed a psychometric test. All this happened without any real accountability. It was a clear abuse of power.

The individuals concerned—Chris Simpkins, Sue Freeth, Sharron Lewis-James and Jane Charlton—have all since moved on, and the wonderful charity to which I refer, and for whose vital work I will always have the greatest respect, the Royal British Legion, is thankfully now under new management. Yet for some, the scars left by those individuals’ actions and behaviours will never heal.

I was the lucky one. Thanks to Cathy James, who put me in touch with an outstanding solicitor, Clive Howard, then at Slater and Gordon, I had a degree of protection from those individuals which meant that I could, reluctantly, leave the job I loved on my terms. The same did not apply to the county managers I have mentioned, whose sense of honour, I suspect, played a part in their not pursuing the same course that I was forced to take. Another factor was that they probably felt they had nowhere to go, and the individuals that I have already mentioned will have known that too.

This Bill is crucial because it would have provided a shield for myself and the county managers and, no less importantly, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, has already said, a deterrent against such actions and behaviours being seen as acceptable in the first place. So I particularly welcome the provisions in Clause 1 and the expansion of the range of relevant matters to include mismanagement of public funds—to which I would add the mismanagement of charitable funds—and the misuse and abuse of authority, as proposed. I also welcome the proposed establishment of the office of the whistleblower and its objectives, including the promotion of good governance. Clause 6, and the preservation of the confidentiality and anonymity of whistleblowers, is paramount. I could not risk going to the Charity Commission, because neither would have been guaranteed in my case.

In conclusion, this Bill is sensible, it is necessary, and it enjoys cross-party support. Subject to further scrutiny in Committee, it deserves the support of your Lordships’ House as well.