Office of the Whistleblower Bill [HL]

Earl of Erroll Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 25th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Erroll (CB)]

My Lords, this is an important Bill which addresses an area that needs thoughtful sorting out. I agree with the points the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, made. There is no point in me repeating any of them, but one I think is particularly important is the whole area of financial redress to whistleblowers. They cannot be left out of pocket and many of them without work. Their whistleblowing has harmed their employment and their future, and that is very serious.

I have two caveats about whether there should or should not be total anonymity. The French experience during the Second World War resulted in France not allowing anonymity for whistleblowers nowadays, because the quickest way of getting your neighbour’s property was to make an anonymous report to the Gestapo that they were members of the resistance, at which point they disappeared. We must always be careful of people using this mechanism incorrectly for their own business ends and that it does not become a weapon, but this is not to say that everything the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, said about protecting whistleblowers was not right.

I also remember back to the 1980s, when I was in software development. If you lost a software developer to the opposition, the best thing was to get an Anton Piller order, at which point you walked in and seized all their files and records because you said there had been copyright infringement. That closed them down for at least a week and put them at a serious disadvantage. It was even better if you could actually follow up with a Mareva injunction—which we never did—because, with a bit of luck, they would go bankrupt. You have to be very careful about some of these things being used in that way.

One of my sons commented on the disturbing tendency that there is no longer the principle of innocent until proven guilty. You can now force people to resign, often from high-profile public positions, by an accusation that many years ago they behaved inappropriately by today’s exacting standards—and this resignation must happen immediately, before any examination of context, veracity or circumstances. Two consequential thoughts came to me from this. The first is that there must not automatically be an unquestioning belief that any blown whistle is true. You will get ones that are not, but it must be handled terribly carefully. The second is a bit broader than the Bill, but I thought I would slot it in here, and it is relevant to stuff that has happened recently in the news. Carelessly worded and overhasty tweets made by someone who is young should not be held against them for ever, especially once they have entered a more reflective and responsible area in their lives. We have a Rehabilitation of Offenders Act, which allows people to put their past behind them after a certain period and gives them a fresh start. We should do the same for all these people who have poorly presented pronouncements in the past which are perceived painfully.