Lord Low of Dalston
Main Page: Lord Low of Dalston (Crossbench - Life peer)Enterprise Bill [HL]
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Lord Low of Dalston
Lord Low of Dalston (CB)
My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendments 70AA and 70AB. The noble Lord, Lord Wills, will speak to Amendment 73B, which is also in this group.
Amendment 70AA would remove whistleblowing settlements from the cap on exit payments and Amendment 70AB would exempt cases of discrimination, harassment and victimisation. We are all becoming increasingly aware these days that whistleblowing is in the public interest. Often, it is only as a result of the public-spirited action of a whistleblower that things like fraud and scandalous malpractice come to light, which shock us all when they do. Capping settlements in respect of whistleblowing cases could easily act as a deterrent to people blowing the whistle and, often, putting their livelihood and reputation at risk. That is why I have tabled Amendment 70AA, which seeks to remove from the cap settlements in Public Interest Disclosure Act cases.
A second concern is that capping settlements where there is no limit on the level of damages that may be obtained at tribunal can only operate as an incentive to go to tribunal. In Committee, the Minister sought to reassure us by saying that tribunal awards would not be capped. We had an interesting exchange, in which I was concerned to insist that that did not address the point about settlements, and the Minister kindly agreed to write to me about this. Reflecting on our exchange, I sought to clarify my position by saying that the Minister’s reassurance not only fails to address the point about settlements, but it strongly reinforces my argument that capping settlements while the amount a tribunal can award remains uncapped provides a clear incentive to people to take their cases to tribunal, rather than settle. That entails costly and contentious litigation which is in neither the employer’s nor the public’s interest.
In her letter, the Minister repeated that indicative regulations provide that any award directed by a court is outside the scope of the cap on exit payments. New Section 153C(1) of the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015, which would be inserted by Clause 26 of the Bill, provides a power to “relax any restriction” of the cap in appropriate circumstances. Unlike court-directed payments, however, which involve a clear finding in respect of the claim, settlement agreements are generally made before any such finding is made. Therefore, the Minister said, if settlement agreements relating to potential whistleblowing claims were outside the scope of the cap, “I am concerned that it could encourage people to make spurious claims of public interest disclosure simply in order to avoid the effect of the cap”. Furthermore, she said that the Treasury would be issuing guidance on the exercising of the power to relax the restrictions imposed by the cap. It is envisaged that the guidance will make it clear that where payments relating to potential whistleblowing claims are correct, the power to exempt exit payments from the cap could be exercised.
On the risk of spurious whistleblowing claims, I suggest that the introduction of the public interest test will help to mitigate this risk as it will give the employer a good argument to resist such claims during settlement negotiations. Employers will also have legal advice. This will enable them to assess the merit of a claim and make it easier for them to resist such an attempt to get round the cap. I therefore think, particularly on account of the tendency for a settlement cap to incentivise people to take their case to a tribunal, that we should seek to remove from the cap settlements in Public Interest Disclosure Act cases, as Amendment 70AA would do.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
Perhaps I may pick that up at the end and deal now with the point on whistleblowing, which we take very seriously.
People who take the bold step of disclosing malpractice in the public interest play an important role in bringing wrongdoing to light. It is essential that they are protected from suffering detriment at the hands of their employers. As the noble Lord, Lord Wills, said, they often take considerable personal risk. The legal framework to protect whistleblowers has been substantially strengthened over the past year, partly due to the great work of the noble Lord and of the charity Public Concern at Work. I am sure I speak on behalf of many in the House when I say how grateful I am for those efforts.
Amendment 73B also concerns whistleblowing and has three components. The key point is that a settlement agreement cannot prevent an employee making a public interest disclosure. The Employment Rights Act 1996 provides that any agreement that seeks to do so will be void, so a whistleblower signing a settlement agreement remains completely free to report the wrongdoing to the relevant body. The issue can be properly investigated without the need for a regulatory referral system as proposed in the amendment.
The time is late. I am entirely happy to meet noble Lords, along with officials from the Treasury and BIS, to talk about some of the points raised, including, for example, an update on the progress of the Francis report changes, although I think they need to settle in, as I indicated earlier. On the point about “appropriate cases”, this is an important issue for the guidance and we will consult on it in parallel with the draft secondary legislation next year. Noble Lords will have the opportunity to see it in advance of the regulations being considered.
That is the long way round of saying that the meeting that I have just accepted should take place should do so. However, I cannot accept the amendment. If the noble Lord wants to press it, he will have to test the opinion of the House but, as I say, I am happy to have a meeting to see whether we can take things forward, particularly on the guidance and the implementing regulations.
Lord Low of Dalston
I apologise to noble Lords for that hiatus. In my naivety about procedure, I rather thought the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, was going to reply. I am grateful to the Minister for her response, and to the noble Lords, Lord Wills and Lord Stoneham, who have both spoken. The Minister has graciously agreed to the meeting that we have asked for, so in those circumstances it would be churlish to press any of these amendments to a vote. We look forward to taking up the offer made by the Minister, who also suggested that she might bring the Treasury along, which would certainly be helpful. One does not always say that bringing the Treasury along would be helpful, but on this occasion one hopes it might be. Since a good deal of my briefing on this issue has come from the Equality and Human Rights Commission, I hope the Minister will agree that it might be helpful to bring a representative along to provide that particular expertise. With that, I am happy to withdraw the amendment.