Office of the Whistleblower Bill [HL]

Baroness Featherstone Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 25th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Featherstone (LD) [V]]

My Lords, congratulations to my noble friend Lady Kramer on bringing this super-important, much needed Bill to the House.

Whistleblowers have for so long paid a price for their bravery in bringing to attention that which organisations, institutions or Governments want kept secret. Take your pick—the Catholic Church, the NHS, the Government, the banks, the BBC and more, all of whose reputations the powers that be judged far more important than those put in jeopardy by their refusal to hear and act on what they were being told. More often than not, those institutions shoot the messenger, those who warn of peril, rather than expose their own weaknesses or wrongdoing. It is immoral.

One brave whistleblower, Kim Holt, at that time under a gagging order and on two-years’ so-called gardening leave, came to me as her MP. She was one of four senior consultant paediatricians in the Haringey child protection team. Many of your Lordships will have heard of the Baby P case, in which baby Peter Connelly tragically died. Of course, it was his family who actually killed him, but it was the cover-up by the institutions that failed to listen to all the warnings given about what was happening in the departments charged with his care that failed him.

Great Ormond Street Hospital was the worst, and it was in charge of the clinic. The four senior consultant paediatricians there, including Dr Holt, jointly signed a letter to Great Ormond Street Hospital management, saying that they were extremely worried about the terrible processes in the department that meant children were being put in danger. I worked with Tim Donovan of BBC London, and we discovered that Great Ormond Street Hospital commissioned an independent report on the role of the paediatric health team run by Great Ormond Street. It was called the Sibert/Hodes report, and its findings were damning, exposing the danger and the responsibility thereof. Despite the report pinning the failures accurately, it never saw the light of day. Great Ormond Street suppressed the original version that contained the truth and published a summary omitting all the points detrimental to Great Ormond Street.

After I had fought for justice for my constituent Kim Holt for over three years, Great Ormond Street finally apologised—too little, far too late. Kim Holt was persecuted by Great Ormond Street for speaking up for the safety of children. Richard Horton, in a signed editorial in the Lancet, wrote:

“When the highly critical Sibert/Hodes Report landed on the desks of GOSH’s managers, they clearly faced a difficult dilemma. If they made the findings public, the inevitable media scrutiny might have damaged their reputation and slowed the progress of their Foundation Trust application. If they edited out GOSH’s failings, they might leave themselves open to the claim of ‘cover up’”.


They did edit out Great Ormond Street’s failings and they did cover it up. Kim Holt was just another victim of “too big to fail” but the real victim was patient safety. The need for the independent office of the whistleblower is clear. I ask your Lordships to please support this excellent Bill.