Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Bill

Mary Robinson Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 20th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention. That is something we can look at again at further stages of the Bill. We understand the issue that hon. Members are trying to resolve, and agree with them that we need to make sure that everybody who deserves justice gets justice, but we also have to be careful to make sure that we are not exonerating people who we know for a fact have committed crimes.

[Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way, and I commend her work and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), not only in recognising the plight of these people and putting in place compensation for their suffering, but in ensuring that these criminal convictions are expunged from their record. It is really important for these people that they regain their standing within their communities.

As my right hon. Friend has rightly said, so many of these whistleblowers were failed by the current law: the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998. It is really vital that we not only put that right, but have a good look at the law again. I know that a framework review is going on, and have spoken to my right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend about what more can be done. I have tabled a whistleblowing Bill that will sort this problem out. It lands within the Department for Business and Trade—it is something that is within my right hon. Friend’s gift. Will she support my private Member’s Bill on Friday?

[Kemi Badenoch]

I thank my hon. Friend for all the work she does in chairing the all-party parliamentary group for whistleblowing. She is right that this issue needs consideration, and we are going to look again at the whistleblowing framework—it is something that comes up time and time again in many respects. I will not comment yet on her private Member’s Bill, because I have not seen it, but I thank her for all her work on this issue.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mary Robinson Excerpts

Thursday 25th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jo Gideon (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Con)]

11. What steps her Department is taking to encourage sub-postmasters who were affected by the failure of the Post Office Horizon system to claim compensation.

[Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)]

12. What steps her Department is taking to encourage sub-postmasters who were affected by the failure of the Post Office Horizon system to claim compensation.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kevin Hollinrake)]

Over £153 million has been paid to 2,700 victims. We encourage anyone impacted to use the three compensation schemes available. We have already published the details of the up-front £75,000 fixed-sum offer for group litigation order postmasters on the gov.uk website, created a new claim form, and written to all eligible members of the GLO scheme to explain the offer further.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I apologise on behalf of the Government to Kym Ledgar for what she has been through. It is absolutely our intention that everybody gets full and fair compensation, and that is not only for financial losses but for non-pecuniary losses. We have taken a number of steps to ensure that the compensation is fair and delivered swiftly, including by establishing the independent advisory board, on which the noble Lord Arbuthnot sits. We will continue to work with the board and consider what further action is required, but yes, I would of course be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss these matters further.

[Mary Robinson]

The Post Office Horizon scandal has made clear to us all what happens when whistleblowers are ignored or silenced. Does my hon. Friend agree that as well as ensuring that victims are properly compensated, we need better legislation to protect whistleblowers? As the Government’s whistleblowing framework review draws to a close, will he meet me to discuss how the outcome of the review can be used to support the Whistleblowing Bill that I presented to the House yesterday?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I thank my hon. Friend for all her work. At one point we were co-chairs of the all-party group for whistleblowing, and she does a tremendous job in raising this issue time and again in the House. We are currently reviewing the effectiveness of the whistleblowing framework in meeting its intended objectives. Every scandal that I have talked about in this House over the years, from the Back Benches and the Front Benches, has come to light because of whistleblowers, who are hugely important. We are reviewing that frame- work. The research for the review is near completion, the Government will set out the next steps in due course, and yes, of course I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss that.

Non-disclosure Agreements in the Workplace

Mary Robinson Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2023 Westminster Hall

[Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ali, and to follow the excellent speech of the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell). I am so grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller) for introducing this important and timely debate and for setting out the case, which I hope the Minister has listened to, for ending the practice of using NDAs once and for all.

Non-disclosure agreements, also known as confidentiality agreements and gagging clauses—they have a whole host of names—are legal contracts setting out how and what information can be shared by its signatories. I accept that these clauses can have legitimate purposes in business to manage commercially sensitive information, intellectual property and trade secrets. However, that should surely be the extent of their usage. All too often, the agreements are instead used to prevent people from speaking up about mistreatment, harassment or wrongdoing, particularly in the workplace.

As chair of the all-party parliamentary group for whistleblowing, I have heard first hand from whistleblowers about how organisations use NDAs as part of settlement agreements following an attempt by an employee to do the right thing: raise concerns about wrongdoing. In every case, there is one thing in common: not only did the whistleblowers feel obliged to sign the NDAs, without necessarily fully understanding them in some cases, but their own lawyers reminded them of their legal duty to remain silent once they did.

Some might argue that whistleblowers are protected by law already, but we know that our existing laws are not working and that they are exclusive. The UK’s existing whistleblowing legislation—the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998, or PIDA—only protects in law disclosures showing a criminal offence, a failure to comply with legal obligations, a miscarriage of justice, endangerment of health and safety, damage to the environment or the concealment of any information relating to the above. Section 43J of PIDA states:

“Any provision in an agreement to which this section applies is void in so far as it purports to preclude the worker from making a protected disclosure.”

What that means in theory is that a confidentiality clause or an NDA that seeks to prevent employees from blowing the whistle should be void under PIDA because under this law we cannot take away a person’s right to make a protected disclosure. However, the problem is still carrying on and it raises a number of issues. First, PIDA has extremely limited scope and applies only to workers and their employers. It also does not cover all people who may work for organisations, such as contractors, volunteers or trustees, or other people who may reasonably gain information that it is in the public interest to disclose: family members, customers and, in the case of health and social care, patients.

Secondly, we know from the many whistleblowing cases that result in detriment and dismissal that employees who speak out are not sufficiently protected by our existing laws. The cycle of a worker bringing forward allegations of wrongdoing only to be dismissed, and having to fight their dismissal at an employment tribunal, is all too common. When they get to tribunal, they must fight for their own employment—their own rights—not the whistleblowing issue that they first raised. Only 12% of these whistleblowing cases are successful at tribunal, so where is the incentive to do the right thing? For many would-be whistleblowers, this likely outcome may persuade them down the route of agreeing to an NDA—and the cover up is complete.

There is also the issue of people not knowing what constitutes a protected disclosure in the first place. In many cases, PIDA would not clearly apply to the things they report, such as a toxic environment or a moral or ethical wrong, and once an NDA has been signed there begins the constant fear of the consequences of breaking it: fear of the risks of breaking the silence, fear of the cost of prosecution. That means that NDAs are a very effective tool for silencing whistleblowers. As a consequence, the wrong goes unpunished, and the cloak of cover-up allows wrongdoing to continue.

One person who was brave enough to break free of the binds of an NDA and speak out was a whistleblower who defied an agreement signed with Hollywood film-maker Harvey Weinstein. By speaking out, she exposed Weinstein’s predatory behaviour, and his extensive history of sexual harassment and rape soon became public. He is now serving decades in prison, and she continues to fight for an end to the misuse of NDAs, through her campaign Can’t Buy My Silence. She deserves our praise and thanks for that.

Speak Out Revolution, which works with Can’t Buy My Silence as a data partner, is actively collecting workplace bullying and harassment experiences from members of the public, and compiling information and statistics. Based on those submissions, 63% do not formally report their workplace bullying or harassment experiences to their organisation. Of those who do, just 3% reach a full resolution. It is five times more likely that a person’s experience will become worse as a result of a formal report. Further, at least a quarter of respondents had signed an NDA. With statistics such as those, anyone considering speaking up can be forgiven for thinking twice.

Although there are non-profit and charitable organisations that can provide advice and guidance, existing legislation does not encourage or protect whistleblowers. I have been campaigning for a change in our whistleblowing legislation, as the Minister will know. Alongside my colleagues on the all-party parliamentary group on whistleblowing, I have now proposed a new Bill that would see the creation of an office of the whistleblower that would support and advise whistleblowers and organisations. It would set standards and levy penalties against those who retaliate against or penalise whistleblowers. That would include addressing the misuse of NDAs and gagging orders, which we simply must tackle. Further, it would recognise and support anyone who is blowing the whistle.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke pointed out, NDAs are being used as a tool to cover up wrongdoing, to silence victims and whistleblowers. We have allowed organisations to get away with using intimidation and fear to conceal evidence of wrongdoing, forcing whistleblowers and victims of crime to keep silent for too long. I call on the Minister to heed the calls heard here, and to take action on abusive NDAs and on our outdated whistleblowing legislation, to ensure that the Government are firmly on the side of truth and transparency and of people who do the right thing.

Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill

Mary Robinson Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 4th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

This business is protected for up to three hours and I am expecting multiple votes at the end of the debate, which could go on until 9.50 pm. The votes would not eat into the next business, which could go on for two hours. I hope that Members will therefore reflect on whether their speeches could be briefer than they had perhaps anticipated, as that would be helpful to everyone concerned, including the staff of the House.

[Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to rise in support of Lords amendments 146 and 147, which introduce the power to strike out SLAPPs claims in relation to instances of economic crime. SLAPPs—strategic litigation against public participation claims—are described as

“legal actions typically brought…with the intention of harassing, intimidating and financially or psychologically exhausting opponents via improper use of the legal system.”

In essence, people who have such a claim brought against them are threatened into silence. They are a tool of intimidation and censorship, often used by wealthy individuals such as Russian oligarchs or by corporations against individuals such as journalists who rarely have the financial means to fight back.

SLAPPs are not brought with the intention of participants having their day in court; they are based on the power of inequality of arms and are intended to stifle free speech, with the allegations never seeing the light of day. For the purposes of this Bill, SLAPPs claims are defined as one where the claimant’s behaviour in relation to the matters concerned has or intends to have the effect of restraining the defendant’s freedom of speech, and that any disclosures they seek to restrain have to do with economic crime or would be made in the public interest to fight economic crime.

These amendments seek to give people more protection when facing a SLAPP claim in relation to economic crime only. They will be able to use a new early dismissal mechanism and, where a case does proceed, they will have the umbrella of a new cost protection regime. This matters because costs can be prohibitive when fighting legal cases, and indeed the financial risks are intended to deter people from fighting back. However, we cannot let people who seek to silence and intimidate win.

We should be concerned that, in 2022, the Coalition Against SLAPPs in Europe found that the UK was the top European destination for cross-border litigation, with 15 of 62 known transnational cases over a decade being filed here. Who knows, there may be more. One of the reasons we are in this position is that the UK has no anti-SLAPP legislation, and I therefore welcome the measures that are being introduced here.

Although the Bill concentrates on economic crime only, I encourage Ministers to make it the first step in bringing a stop to SLAPPs altogether. SLAPPs are not just a threat to freedom of speech and freedom of expression, they seek to stop so many other disclosures that are in the public interest.

As chair of the all-party parliamentary group for whistleblowing, I am committed to protecting and empowering people who speak out. I have been pushing for legislative change to ensure that people feel able, safe and supported to make disclosures that are in the public interest. Whistleblowers, as my hon. Friend the Minister knows, are pivotal in the fight against economic crime and fraud, with almost half of all fraud detected by whistleblowers. Because economic crime is often well hidden and difficult to trace, discovering it requires insiders to speak out and share their knowledge.

Take, for example, the £178 billion Danske Bank money laundering scheme, which was exposed only as a result of a whistleblower who had worked in the bank’s trading unit and who raised concerns about breaches of anti-money laundering procedures in its Estonian branch. His internal reports ignored, he turned to the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Once allegations made the news headlines, Danske Bank itself ordered an investigation that confirmed the whistleblower’s claims.

Although a worker may seek protection at an employment tribunal, journalists, who are often the target of SLAPPs, are not recognised as whistleblowers under UK law, and they are therefore afforded no protection. Yet due to the investigative nature of their work, they are among the most likely to acquire inside information and evidence of wrongdoing. At the moment our whistleblowing legislation, the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998, applies only to workers and is meant to protect them from unfair dismissal or detriment at work that may result from their whistleblowing. Whistleblowers such as journalists, who fall outside our current laws and are prey to SLAPPs, will find support with these amendments where their disclosure relates to economic crime.

[Sir Chris Bryant]

I completely agree with everything the hon. Lady has said about SLAPPs and the importance of journalists effectively acting as an additional regulator, but they need the information. Does she also support the amendments that would ensure trusts cannot be a means of hiding information from journalists and others who might want to be able to reveal it?

[Mary Robinson]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for bringing that point forward. As we know, this is about investigative journalists who want to get in there and get the information. Transparency is in the name of the Bill, which may answer his question.

[Sir Chris Bryant]

The Government are insisting that we should keep the real ownership of trusts secret, and the problem journalists have is that there is not a proper exemption to enable them to find out the ownership that lies behind a trust.

[Mary Robinson]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that clarification. The important thing is that journalists do not find themselves called before the courts through SLAPPs and this type of litigation, and that is the point we are trying to make here. I am sure the Minister has heard the hon. Gentleman.

As has been said, SLAPPs are used to silence and cover up. To effectively root out economic crime, it is right that we address their use, but I think the Government can go further still by reforming the UK’s whistleblowing laws. In doing so, we could encourage more people to come forward with evidence of economic crime, secure in the knowledge that the system is on their side. We must have a system that recognises any person as a potential whistleblower, not just an employee, as our current legislation does. We must have a system that values whistleblowers, not one that ignores or punishes them. We must have a system that makes whistleblowers feel supported and valued.

I know the Government are currently reviewing the UK’s whistleblowing framework, and I will continue to push for the reform we need. Meanwhile, these amendments are an important step forward, and I am pleased to support them.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I welcome the moves the Government have made on this Bill. It is important that they have done so, but they could still go much further.

I pay tribute to the work of the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) on the all-party parliamentary group for whistleblowing, and to the organisations in this sector that do so much to bring light to what can be a very complex and detailed issue.

The Minister talks about the UK having a reputation for allowing legitimate businesses to thrive, but we are here this evening to challenge the other reputation that has built up over the years. The UK has now become a hub for dirty money, which is funnelled through the UK’s financial system by an army of enablers. This Bill is an opportunity to dam that flow and to stop this dirty money, but as the excellent “Catch me if you can: Gaps in the Register of Overseas Entities” report, published by the London School of Economics and CAGE Warwick, says,

“there is no point building a dam halfway across a river.”

Without closing the loopholes and the gaps, that is what this Government are doing.

The Minister has promised consultations and further things to come in the future. It is fine to dangle these things before us, but we all know that we are heading towards an election and the Government cannot promise to deliver on any of the consultations he hopes to bring forward. Whatever happens, there will be an election. This House is almost out of time, and we should take the opportunity tonight to do this Bill right.

I will run through the Lords amendments, given the time constraints you mentioned, Mr Deputy Speaker. The Lords amendment on nominee shareholders was tabled by Lord Vaux, and as other Members have said, there is an awful lot more we could do on that. It is not enough for the Government just to say, as they did in their letter to Members, that such a measure would most likely be ignored by illegitimate actors and would be difficult to enforce. That is not much of a reason not to legislate and not to try. There is a real issue with how complex structures have been brought about, and the Government need to grab hold of it. This Bill is an opportunity to close a loophole before it is further exploited.

Enforcement is a big part of this, and the Government do not enforce the current rules. Saying a measure would be difficult to enforce when they are not enforcing the rules to begin with does not give us great confidence. Between 2012 and 2022 only three fines were issued for false filing to Companies House. As of October 2022, only one fine of £210 has been issued for not filing the person with significant control of a Scottish limited partnership. If the Government do not enforce the rules they have brought forward, they cannot really ask for more rules. They need to get real about enforcement. They need to make sure the laws we pass this evening are effective.

Updates to the register of overseas entities are a significant gap in the system. As others have said, updates can take almost an entire year, in which time other things could happen. Event-driven updates would hold companies to account. If we think about it, there will be paperwork when companies make any change, so they might as well do the update at the same time. That would be logical.

Lords amendment 117 in the name of Lord Agnew, on the transparency of trust data on the register of overseas entities, makes a critical point. We must deal with trusts without further delay, without further consultation and without kicking the can further down the road. Here is the opportunity to do that. As Transparency International and the BBC showed in February, trusts are being used to hide the ownership of thousands of overseas entities under the current regime. They estimate that more than 7,000 overseas entities on the register, about a quarter of the total, are hiding the ownership of roughly 20,000 properties. Why would the Minister not want to close that loophole? Why would he not want to improve this system right now?

Whistleblowing Awareness Week

Mary Robinson Excerpts

Thursday 23rd March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Whistleblowing Awareness Week.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McDonagh. I am pleased to be here today to consider Whistleblowing Awareness Week. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group for whistleblowing, I would like to recognise the work of our secretariat, WhistleblowersUK, and other partners and supporters in bringing together a programme of events to mark the UK’s first Whistle- blowing Awareness Week.

What is Whistleblowing Awareness Week? In short, it is a celebration of the people and organisations who work hard to do the right thing and shine a light on abuse, corruption, fraud, patient safety concerns and other wrongdoing that would otherwise continue to go unchecked. It is a chance to use the past to shape the future, and to acknowledge what works and what needs to change. It is an opportunity to demonstrate how reforming existing legislation with a new whistleblowing law would put the public interest first and ensure that UK standards are global standards.

We need standards that protect whistleblowers by empowering people to speak up and normalising doing so, investigating concerns, stopping wrongdoing and saving money. We need to have penalties—this must have teeth—that incentivise organisations to do the right thing, and education and access to help and support people and organisations.

Why do we need to raise awareness? Whistleblowers are often described as the canary in the coal mine. What an analogy that is; we all know that the canary suffers in order to let people know that there is a problem. Whistleblowers are ordinary people who see something that is wrong and speak up to stop it, with an expectation that those who have the authority to do something will put things right. It is a fair expectation, but, sadly, it is often far from the reality.

Very often, others in an organisation are also aware of the wrongdoing, but only one person has the courage to speak out and to keep speaking out—the person who will not be fobbed off. This is the person with integrity, who believes in policy and procedures, who believes that the organisation they work for wants to know, and who believes that it will act to stop wrongdoing and protect others from abuse or harm.

[Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

I hope to speak in the debate later, so I will keep my intervention short. Does my hon. Friend feel that we need some sort of cultural shift and cultural change that creates a safer space, with the attitude that whistleblowing is not bad, but can actually help an organisation, society and individuals?

[Mary Robinson]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. We know that when people do not speak out, it is because of the culture. We have seen that this week with the report on the Metropolitan police, which I will go on to consider later. She is entirely right that the culture in organisations needs to be changed. I believe that that culture change needs to be led by a change in our legislation.

Name an industry or a sector, and I can name a scandal brought to light by whistleblowers, who have been stifled, ignored or gaslit rather than listened to, and who have then been bullied and harassed out of their jobs. People who see that happening think twice about blowing the whistle. Unfortunately, as my right hon. Friend has rightly said, all too often people who could and should speak out fear the culture in an organisation and are silenced by it, with devastating results.

[Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a very powerful speech, and we are listening with great interest. I congratulate her on securing this debate and on all her campaigning work on whistleblowing over the past few years, for which we are really grateful. Regrettably, I am unable to stay and make a speech, although I would have liked to do so. I apologise; I am on the Lifelong Learning (Higher Education Fee Limits) Bill Committee at 2 o’clock, but I shall read the rest of her speech and the other contributions with great interest.

Does my hon. Friend agree that we all have a duty to encourage individuals to come forward to highlight such issues and to be whistleblowers when they see something wrong? The awareness week will help us get that publicity.

[Mary Robinson]

My right hon. Friend has got right to the heart of this matter. If people do not know that they can come forward, or if they are in an organisation with a culture of fear and cover-up, they will not. Whistleblowing Awareness Week is about ensuring that people know what they can do, and about making organisations aware that they need to change. I am pushing for changes to legislation, as the Minister knows from our conversations —it is great to have him here today. My right hon. Friend is entirely right; it is about the culture in organisations.

The publication this week of Baroness Casey’s report into the Metropolitan police lays bare the tragic consequences of a culture of fear and cover-up, but if it were not this report, there would be another story in the headlines this week exposed by a whistleblower—or worse.

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a very powerful point. The Casey review highlights a very specific example that shows why this debate is so important. Sir Mark Rowley, the commissioner of the Metropolitan police, says he believes that he cannot sack officers who are either convicted of or under investigation for criminal offences. Why would whistleblowers come forward if there is no positive consequence to their actions?

[Mary Robinson]

That is at the heart of the problem. If people see that nothing is going to happen, why would they come forward? If they see that somebody is going to be bullied out of their job, why would they come forward? If they see that complaints or information about wrongdoing that they take to their senior leadership will not be acted on, why would they come forward? That is exactly at the heart of the problem.

We need to consider not just the impact of whistleblowers coming forward, making a complaint and letting people know what is going on, but also the impact of not doing that. We need to consider the impact when there is somebody in the police force who is known to indulge, or suspected of indulging, in bad or criminal behaviour, but nothing is done, nobody speaks out and the leadership does not act.

For this Whistleblowing Awareness Week, participants at a series of events in Westminster have heard from a wide range of whistleblowing experts from across the globe—legal, financial and human resources professionals, and those who have turned their lived, first-hand experience into action and passion for change. On Tuesday morning, my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup) chaired a roundtable on whistleblowing in the healthcare sector. I hope she will speak about that later. We heard from a range of experts, including the national guardian for freedom to speak up in the NHS, Dr Jayne Chidgey-Clark. That role came out of the recommendations of the 2015 “Freedom to Speak Up” report by Sir Robert Francis KC, which found that NHS culture did not always encourage staff to speak up or facilitate their doing so. That failure had a direct and negative impact on patients and staff.

Time and again, we have seen the impact of that failure in health trusts across the country: people have been impacted by scandals and lives have been lost in tragic circumstances. The national guardian is tasked with leading the change in NHS culture—look, it must change. Her most recent report includes many positive voices, which is good, but it also highlights that 58.3% of freedom to speak up guardians believe that barriers to speaking up include the concern that nothing will be done, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (James Daly) said. Alarmingly, 69% believe that a fear of retaliation or suffering as a result of speaking out is a deterrent. Clearly, there is more to be done to break down these barriers.

Patient safety depends on the success of a speaking-out culture, and that should sit alongside a learning culture where mistakes are not covered up for fear of blame. Doctors, nurses and other staff in healthcare settings have lives in their hands and they must feel comfortable, confident and able to report errors and mistakes.

It is often the whistleblowers themselves who give the most powerful testimony. Dr Chris Day is not only a whistleblower—he raised serious patient safety concerns while working as a junior doctor in an intensive care unit—but a change maker who exposed a gap in whistleblowing law that was subsequently reformed. After having blown the whistle on the understaffing that he witnessed, there was another battle on his hands: who can be held to account under existing legislation? As a junior doctor, his training and career were in the hands of Health Education England, who argued that as it did not directly employ Dr Day, the law did not apply to it. He challenged that, and the court found that junior doctors did come under the extended definition of worker. It also found that a worker could have two employers under whistleblowing legislation. Although the issues that he raised as a whistleblower have not been resolved, Dr Day’s actions have resulted in a change to the law.

During our roundtable on Wednesday this week, exploring the new approach to whistleblowing, we heard from Jonathan Taylor, who exposed bribery in the oil and gas industry. Although his disclosures resulted in SBM, a Dutch multinational, paying out more than $800 million in fines and related payments, his whistleblowing also put a stop to an economic crime that had run to hundreds of millions. A statistic that is shared many times in Parliament, including by me, is that 43% of economic crime is detected and exposed through whistleblowers. The Minister has previously said he believes that about 100% of economic crime detection could be attributed to whistleblowing. So, if we want to know where economic crime is being committed, we need to encourage whistle- blowers and others to speak out.

However, speaking up came at a huge personal and professional cost to Mr Taylor. Not only did he spend a year under house arrest in Croatia, but he lost his career. We cannot overestimate the mental and emotional toll that whistleblowing has on people, and he is not alone in his experience. It is no wonder, after having heard the detriment suffered by so many whistleblowers, that people are averse to speaking up.

We also had the pleasure of welcoming Zelda Perkins, who, in breaking her non-disclosure agreement, shone a light on sexual abuse in Hollywood and helped to expose a top film executive who would later be prosecuted for sexual assault and rape. She went on to co-found the Can’t Buy My Silence campaign, which seeks to make NDAs unenforceable except in the case of preventing the sharing of confidential business information and trade secrets, which was their original purpose. The campaign’s efforts contributed to the Department for Education’s introduction of its pledge to end the use of NDAs in universities. That is progress, but we need to go further.

NDAs are often used not just to settle employment disputes, but to silence people. Fraud, corruption, incompetence, environmental damage, abuse, avoidable deaths and cover-ups are silently buried through the use of those agreements. Instead, I would like to bury the use of NDAs for that purpose. We have a situation where some people want to speak up but are bound by such legal agreements, and we have others who could speak but fear reprisals and repercussions. Either way, wrongdoing goes unchallenged. So now what?

Baroness Casey’s Met police review highlights systemic and chronic problems that can arise across any organisation where there is a culture of fear and cover-up. We have a police force riddled with misogyny, racism and homophobia, with inadequate management structures, a lack of leadership and a culture of fear. She describes an organisation where:

“The culture of not speaking up has become so ingrained that even when senior officers actively seek candid views, there is a reluctance to speak up.”

Whistleblowers must have trust and confidence in internal processes, but whistleblowers often come from outside these organisations. I remain concerned that our lack of an inclusive and effective whistleblowing law will continue to hinder progress.

Colleagues may know that last year I brought forward a private Member’s Bill that would reform our whistleblowing legislation. Although it fell because of lack of time, I remain determined to see changes to how we support, encourage and protect the brave people who are prepared to speak out and report wrongdoing. The Bill proposed to create an office of the whistleblower, which would be responsible for setting, monitoring and enforcing standards in the management of whistleblowing cases. The office would provide advice services and a clear avenue for disclosure, and it would direct investigations and handle redress for whistleblowers. Importantly, it would support anyone blowing the whistle.

[Wendy Morton]

My hon. Friend makes it clear that whistleblowing can affect anyone, no matter what organisation they are attached to. Does she agree that that is why we need some changes to the legislative framework to ensure this much-needed change happens? Cultural change alone will not do it; it needs a nudge from Government.

[Mary Robinson]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right in making that point. In the context of employment law, the existing legislation relates only to people in an employer-employee relationship. As I was going on to say, there is evidence that an office of the whistleblower would incentivise disclosures. People would have a safe space in which to speak, and currently they do not have that across every sector and in every way.

[Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)]

My hon. Friend makes the good point that the existing legislation covers only people who are employed by organisations, but it was evident on Tuesday that sometimes employees do not feel able to bring forward their concerns. In the NHS, patients or their families end up having to raise the concerns, and they are not covered by the legislation.

[Mary Robinson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention, which gets to the heart of the matter. Our existing law only looks at whether there is an employer-employee relationship, and when there is a relationship breakdown and the person is forced out of their job or leaves it—whether or not that is because of constructive dismissal—they will end up in an employment tribunal arguing the case for their job and their livelihood. The issue that she raises is not touched on at all. Family members of patients, or those who have come across harm and wrongdoing in a different way, have no cover at all. Across the piece, whistleblowers do not get the protection they need, and I would like that to be changed.

To put into perspective where we are now, in 2020 the International Bar Association measured countries with whistleblowing legislation against a list of 20 best practices. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) knows, the existing legislation was introduced in 1998 by her predecessor, so the provisions have been in our law for some time and were ground- breaking at the time. The UK meets only five of the 20 best practice measures. Meanwhile, the United States, whose Office of the Whistleblower sits in the Securities and Exchange Commission, met 16 of the measures. That office received 12,300 disclosures in 2022, which was nearly double the 2020 figure. Ministers have promised a review of the existing whistleblowing framework, and that is welcome.

[James Daly]

Will my hon. Friend comment on this matter in respect of how the legislation is not working? Originally, the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 did not apply to police officers. However, whistleblowing provisions and protections came in through the Police Reform Act 2002, and they received whistleblowing protection from 1 April 2004. We have legislation in place that states police officers have whistleblowing protection. The situation has actually got worse, and that clearly shows that the legislation needs reforming immediately.

[Mary Robinson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about that; we have seen it across various police forces. We are now further examining how the cultures are working, and that need for reform is there. It shows that the best intentions to bring in reforms do not always lead to the protections that we want people to have.

I welcome the review. However, as part of it, I ask the Minister and the Department to look at where this policy area falls and which Department should take responsibility. We have spoken already today about the NHS, policing, and different sectors and organisations. Although I am grateful that my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) is now the Minister responsible, given his extensive experience and his support for whistleblowers and legislative change, I hope that he and the Government will look at the issue in a different way. The existing law has constraints because it relates to only employment and business. Perhaps now is the time to look at the issue more holistically, because it crosses so many Departments.

As I have already set out, the issue cuts across industries and sectors. Importantly, anyone—not just an employee—can be a whistleblower. However, our laws have told us to look at it from only an employer-employee perspective. When it was introduced 25 years ago, the Public Interest Disclosure Act was heralded as world leading, with protections for whistleblowers at employment tribunals. However, as I just said to my hon. Friend, just 4% of employment cases are successful at tribunal. That further brings PIDA’s efficacy into question.

We are all familiar with gov.uk; it is where we get all our information. The gov.uk page on whistleblowing says:

“You’re a whistleblower if you’re a worker and you report certain types of wrongdoing. This will usually be something you’ve seen at work - though not always.

The wrongdoing you disclose must be in the public interest. This means it must affect others, for example the general public.”

By my interpretation, that means the Government consider only a limited part of the population to be whistleblowers.

I am grateful that my hon. Friend the Minister attended the launch of Whistleblowing Awareness Week on Monday. I am grateful for his comments and support. He has wide-ranging and in-depth knowledge in this area; I like to think that is partly due to his time as co-chair of the APPG on whistleblowing. I was interested to hear his comments on his business experience and the importance of customer complaints. However, if a customer witnesses wrongdoing in a business or organisation, they are not covered by PIDA. As my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash pointed out, a family member of an employee is not covered. Volunteers and contractors are not covered either.

Despite concerns expressed by some, this is not about stripping back employment rights. It is about extending those rights and protections to the wider population. It is about protecting victims of crime who may have evidence of wrongdoing within the police, protecting lawyers and accountants who have uncovered evidence of fraud, and protecting those associated with economic crime who may wish to inform law enforcement. Whistleblowing is more than an employment issue. It is a business issue, a safety issue and an issue for Government. I question whether its future belongs in employment law at all.

During Whistleblowing Awareness Week, we heard from some of those who have spoken out about their journey to expose the truth. Our discussions highlighted the urgent need for the Government to introduce new legislation that defines whistleblowing and puts in place meaningful measures to protect whistleblowers from retaliation. It is interesting that our existing legislation does not mention the word “whistleblower” at all.

For those in doubt about the urgency for reform, I hope I have made some of the moral arguments. Let us get to finance. Whistleblowers are acknowledged as the single most effective means of addressing fraud and corruption—not accountants, lawyers or anybody else, but whistleblowers. It is estimated that fraud and corruption costs the UK over £190 billion a year. To put that into perspective, that is more than the entire NHS budget. We cannot continue in this way.

The proposals backed by the APPG on whistleblowing and in the Bill that I brought forward last year will improve the rights of workers, give new rights to everyone, save lives and put an end to the costly and wasteful practice of cover up.

Whistleblowing Awareness Week was brought forward and launched to introduce and mobilise public opinion, influence legislators, celebrate those courageous whistle- blowers who have already given so much to society and seek to bring about a better world in which ordinary people will no longer have to have extraordinary courage to speak up. It is my hope that the conversations we have had this week will continue to move the dial towards legislative change, and I am grateful to have the time in this debate to be able to raise awareness of Whistleblowing Awareness Week.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Hollinrake]

No? I thought the hon. Gentleman was.

In law, NDAs cannot be used to prevent a worker from blowing the whistle, so there are some protections in law in that respect. I believe the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston, also brought out that point.

[Mary Robinson]

On NDAs being used to prevent a worker from blowing the whistle, the Minister is quite right to make that point, but of course another point to consider is when a person blows the whistle, an employment dispute might arise that could be the subject of a case that goes to law, or lead to that person being dismissed from their job. At that point, the person might accept an NDA, so the harm that was being reported and brought to light in the first place is thereby effectively covered up.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

That brings me to my next point. My hon. Friend makes a very good point, but the employment tribunal is there to settle compensation. It is the regulators in the various sectors that are there to look at the problem, the detriment, and to consider the whistleblowing concerns and act on them. That cannot be restricted by an NDA in that kind of compensation settlement, I think.

What I regard as the key point in my hon. Friend’s contribution today is the proposal for an office of the whistleblower. I quite understand that the intent is to provide one central place for whistleblowing and to make sure that we have best practice across the piece. Such an office would provide consistency in standards for regulatory investigations triggered by whistleblowing information. I am also interested in the issues that dealing with whistleblowing disclosures might raise for the prescribed persons, and vice versa.

I know there are concerns, not just in Government but in wider circles, about how such an office would interact with the role of regulators, who are experts, of course. It is important that we look at the arguments for and against the proposed office, and I am keen to look at international examples. My hon. Friend referred to the USA. The numbers of disclosures there are interesting. According to my figures, there were 50,000 protected disclosures in the UK in 2020-21. I think my hon. Friend said that 20,000 were dealt with by the Office of the Whistleblower in the US, which is obviously a much bigger country in terms of population and potential whistleblowing. I am interested in the gap.

One point to make is that a UK office of the whistleblower would of course need extensive resources to be able to handle or to oversee 50,000 protected disclosures, and significant expertise to ensure that it fully understood the nature of the problem and was able to work alongside the regulators, which I think is what my hon. Friend envisages, rather than replace the regulators in terms of their functions. Clearly, regulators themselves, be it the FCA or the regulators in the NHS, would have a responsibility to ensure that the issues were addressed properly and whistleblowing guidelines and processes were followed. It is a question of understanding the interaction between the two and what resources would be needed to fully and properly fund an office of the whistleblower.

All these matters need to be taken into account in deciding how to proceed. The review, as I have said, is something that we want to bring forward very quickly, and we want hon. Members on both sides of the House to be able to input into it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mary Robinson]

It has been a pleasure to be here today. I thank everybody for taking part and joining me today during Whistleblowing Awareness Week. It was a particular pleasure to me when, at the start of the week, I was joined by my hon. Friend the Minister and by the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra), at the launch and we had unanimity. It is a rare thing in this place to have everybody singing from the same hymn sheet, political though it may be. I hope that that will lead us to some success.

I am reassured by the Minister’s words regarding the review. It is probably the first time that I have heard “very, very soon”, rather than “soon” or “shortly”. [Hon. Members: “Days!”] Exactly—we got it down to “days”. I was going to press for the hours as well, but I will not. The important thing is that this is moving forward.

I thank everybody who has taken part in today’s debate. There have been so many powerful interventions and contributions. From the discussions about the Met police force and the GMP issues raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (James Daly), we know that this is not just about business—about that one sector. My hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup), who chaired the roundtable this week, talked about the issues in the NHS, and we heard from my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), whose predecessor brought forward the legislation that is at the heart of our discussion today and the changes that we want to make.

The SNP spokesman, the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes), rightly took on the key aspect, which is that this is not just about employees; it needs to spread to other people. He gave us pause for thought when he referred to the whistleblower who said, “Be prepared to lose everything.” That is what we are trying to fight against. I hope we can take forward the legislation in a robust way, so that during every Whistleblowing Awareness Week we have in the future, as I hope we will, we will be talking positively about the work we have done and the changes that have been made in response to people in organisations who wanted to make those changes.

It cannot be right that a person goes to work every day in fear of saying the right thing. It cannot be right that people’s lives are put at risk by organisations where the culture of fear is so inherent that people within them cannot speak out. It cannot be right that people risk losing their job, their livelihood and sometimes their home, their family and their relationships because they do the right thing. I would like to think that we will all be encouraging the Government to do the right thing for whistleblowers.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered Whistleblowing Awareness Week.