Metropolitan Police: Casey Review

Mary Robinson Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

As Baroness Casey makes clear, the majority of Londoners support the appropriate use of stop and search. As Sir Mark has made clear, stop and search is a vital tool in keeping Londoners safe and saving lives; 350 to 400 knives are seized per month thanks to stop and search. That is why I emphatically support the appropriate use of stop and search as a way to keep everyone safe.

[Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)]

Baroness Casey’s report makes harrowing reading. We see a police force riddled with misogyny, racism and homophobia; and a place where complainants or whistleblowers, rather than being listened to, are turned on and mistreated, leading to a systemic fear of speaking up. During the UK’s first Whistleblowing Awareness Week, this report shines a light on the failure of organisations where there is a culture of fear and cover-up. Shockingly, the report makes the following clear:

“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.”

Clearly, the Government, the Mayor and the Met leadership must act on all of the report’s recommendations. However, may I add another one of my own, by encouraging my right hon. and learned Friend to consider how whistleblowing reform and an office of the whistleblower could play a key part in eradicating toxic cultures across all organisations?

[Suella Braverman]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight the need for reform of misconduct procedures. There are measures to ensure that there is transparency and rigour in the system, including the Independent Office for Police Conduct. The Government have also introduced other measures, including routinely holding misconduct hearings in public and having independent legally qualified chairs to lead misconduct hearings. But there is a vital need to ensure that provision on dismissals and the process of rooting out inappropriate officers is improved, which is why I have launched a consultation to look at just that.

Manchester Arena Inquiry: Volume 3 Report

Mary Robinson Excerpts

Monday 6th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. Following the attacks in 2017, MI5 and counter-terrorism policing together carried out a series of reviews. Their 126 recommendations included: better data exploitation; the wider sharing of intelligence; and changes to how terrorist threats were assessed and investigated. An independent review by David Anderson concluded in December 2017 that

“the recommendations taken as a whole will strengthen MI5 and the police in their ability to stop most terrorist attacks.”

So a wide range of measures and actions have been taken since 2017 to improve data sharing, data exploitation and the assessment of intelligence. Let me give her and the British people the assurance that no stone will be left unturned by this Government to keep the British people safe. That is why have announced an investment of £370 million in a new counter-terrorism operations centre—CTOC. The new headquarters for London-based counter-terrorism policing, the intelligence community and Government partners will increase the strength, resilience and collaboration of our wholesale UK counter-terrorism effort.

[Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)]

I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend for this statement. With 22 people murdered and more than 1,000 people injured, the impact of this attack on families will go on for a lifetime. We must not only learn lessons, but ensure it never happens again. I welcome the Government backing for Martyn’s law. That is really important, because people want to know that when they go into a venue they are safe. While we are waiting for that to come forward—I hope it can be brought forward quickly—what conversations is she having and what instructions is she giving to venues to make sure that they start to act now and do not wait until the legislation is put in place?

[Suella Braverman]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to refer to the steps we are taking. We are going to introduce Martyn’s law to impose legal duties on public venues and those responsible for public spaces to secure them against potential terrorist threats. We are already taking considerable action to ensure that there is high-quality advice, best practice and support for those responsible for public places. Many businesses and organisations already do excellent work to improve their security and preparedness, but legislative requirements will go just that step further in ensuring that there is a robust approach and that everyone knows what their duties are.

Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill

Mary Robinson Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 25th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dame Margaret Hodge]

Indeed, and we considered an amendment in yesterday’s debate to address that specific issue, so that any funds arising from a confiscation order, or other such order, could be enjoyed by the enforcement agencies themselves, which would provide an additional incentive. We discussed last week’s Danske Bank settlement of criminal issues in the United States, from which the enforcement agencies received $2 billion. Just imagine the amount of enforcement activity that could be funded from that fee. We are timid in that regard, so I completely concur with the right hon. Gentleman on that.

The other argument in relation to cost caps is that the fear of facing huge costs if one fails in a case provides a disincentive to the enforcement agents to pursue as vigorously as one would like economic crime prosecutions. The Minister has said to me previously that there is no evidence to back that up, but I just do not buy that. A proper analysis of how people in the NCA, the Serious Fraud Office and other agencies think before they decide to pursue a prosecution would very quickly reveal that there is a disincentive. It is for those two reasons that we considered cost caps. The US is our model. Each party bears its own costs, which is much more effective. We heard figures yesterday—I will not repeat them because I have to get on—that the US gets much more money in and it does not cost as much to its enforcement agencies.

Those are the things that I wanted to cover. I hope that, in summing up, the Minister will please give us some concessions. I urge him to reflect on the degree of unanimity across the House and on the very senior figures on his own Back Benches who have chosen to work, in particular, with members of the two all-party groups to reach consensus. We do argue these things out. We come to a view after an extensive debate on a subject; it is never an open and shut case. Back Benchers are in a better position at present than those on the Front Bench, so I ask the Minister to listen to us because we may just be right and it would be good if there was a concession on something.

[Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)]

I rise to speak to new clause 7, which is in my name, and the names of Members across the House. It would require the Secretary of State to set up an office for whistleblowers within 12 months of the Bill receiving Royal Assent, and as chair of the all-party group for whistleblowers, I wish to register my interest.

The office for whistleblowers would be an independent body, which reports to Parliament and would have three main duties: to protect whistleblowers from detriment resulting from their disclosures; to ensure that these disclosures are investigated; and to escalate information and evidence of wrongdoing that is outside its remit to the appropriate authority, including regulators or, if appropriate, the police.

I thank the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge), who introduced this new clause at Committee stage and spoke to it robustly and with the knowledge and passion of someone who has been pursuing this for many years.

Despite a complete lack of reference in the Bill, whistleblowers and whistleblowing have a pivotal role in the fight against economic crime. Indeed, when this proposal was debated at Committee, the right hon. Member for Barking referenced her time as Chair of the Public Accounts Committee and noted that all the work that the Committee did on economic crime came from whistleblowers, and yet, in a Bill that seeks to tackle economic crime, whistleblowers are not referenced.

One statistic that has been shared many times when debating this subject in Parliament is that 43% of economic crime is detected and exposed through whistleblowers. However, in his response to the Committee debate, the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) noted that he believed that about 100% of economic crime detection could be attributed to whistleblowing. Once again, that appears to be confirmation that, if we want to know where an economic crime is being committed, it is most likely to be a whistleblower who exposes it.

The objectives of the office I propose in this new clause would be to encourage support and advise whistleblowers, providing a safe place to share information and acting on evidence of detriment to the whistleblower. We simply must protect whistleblowers who speak out, risking retaliation, as we have heard, harassment and losing their job—or, in the case of serious organised crime, possibly a much worse outcome. The office will enhance protections of those who whistleblow, while at the same time incentivising such disclosures by providing a safe space to share information.

There is evidence that an office for whistleblowers does incentivise disclosures. In 2020, the International Bar Association measured countries with whistleblowing legislation against a list of 20 best practices. The UK met just five of the 20. Meanwhile, the United States, where an Office of the Whistleblower sits within the Securities and Exchange Commission, met 16 of the best practices. That office received 12,300 disclosures in 2022, nearly double that of 2020, and, as its chief stated:

“The significant increase in the number of whistleblower tips and awards since the program’s inception shows that the program, with its enhanced confidentiality protections, is effectively incentivizing whistleblowers to make the often difficult decision to come forward with information”.

This is a cross-party, cross-departmental issue. Whistleblowers are to be thanked for, among many things, uncovering waste in our public services, highlighting poor or dangerous medical practices and conduct, and revealing the laundering, funnelling and theft of vast amounts of public and private money. When people steal from the public purse, it is society that suffers and our constituents who pay the price. According to law firm Pinsent Masons, His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs received nearly 14,000 tip-offs regarding misuse of the covid furlough scheme. In just one case, £27.4 million of taxpayer money had been falsely claimed by a fraudster who, despite never having been to the UK, registered four companies in London and claimed furlough for more than 2,700 non-existent employees. Some £26.5 million of public money was recovered as a result, in a case that also reinforces the importance of Companies House reform.

We have heard details of the Danske Bank money laundering scheme in previous debates, so I will not delve into the details again, but in that case we know that criminals took advantage of UK limited liability partnerships. That is why the reforms at Companies House and to limited partnerships are needed. However, once again, it was a whistleblower who brought that $230 billion economic crime to light, halting the stream of illegal Russian money laundering. Without him, it might never have been uncovered and might have continued for years.

That was before Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, but we know that illicit finance helped to fund the war and will continue to fund it, unless it is stopped. I welcome the swift action the Government have taken to tackle the scourge of financial crime, first by passing the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022, then by introducing the Bill we are debating today. However, while the Government have introduced measures that will go far in preventing economic crime, as it stands, neither piece of legislation supports those very people who are key to its detection.

Having spoken to many dozens of whistleblowers over the years, I know that someone who reports wrongdoing can risk jeopardising their reputation, their career, their mental health, their wellbeing and that of their family. It is not a decision made lightly. Whistle-blowers who expose economic crime must balance the risk to themselves in the name of doing what is right. That should not be the case.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Tugendhat]

The right hon. Lady knows very well that I would find it impossible not to listen to her. I look forward to seeing how we can return to this issue. The Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), will no doubt wish to have a strong input as well, so I shall say no more at this stage.

Let me now touch on the question of whistleblowers, and pay enormous tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mary Robinson), who has been a friend of many of us for a number of years since she was first elected and who has championed, consistently and clearly, the need for an office for whistleblowers. She is absolutely right: what the country needs is an office for whistleblowers, and what we need to do is ensure that we have the updates to the legislation that she so correctly highlighted. The establishment of such an office would, however, be a significant undertaking. It would have major financial applications owing to its size, it would require significant staffing, and, as matters stand, it might duplicate the role of regulators without the same level of sector expertise. I know that my hon. Friend had the opportunity to meet my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State earlier this week to discuss her new clause and plans for the review, which I understand will be set out soon, I hope that the meeting was constructive.

[Mary Robinson]

I have indeed had a meeting with the Under-Secretary to discuss this. There is a long way to go on it and I am steadfast about setting up the office for whistleblowers. However, the conversations have been constructive, I am grateful to Ministers and I will not be pressing my new clause to a vote.

[Tom Tugendhat]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that and to the Under-Secretary for having had those conversations. He knows my support for her interest in this important matter.

Clearly, many amendments have been tabled today. The last point I wish to make before we move on to Third Reading is that the Government listened an awful lot on this Bill. Many of us, including myself and the Under-Secretary, who have been taking it through this place, have been listening extremely carefully, for many reasons. One of those reasons is that we picked this up, as many people do, a long way down its process of drafting and through its progress through this House. No doubt there are areas where all of us could tweak, adjust, test and push, but we think that the Bill offers major progress on the situation where we began; I am delighted that that point was shared across this House. So although there are areas where we could have further discussion—I am sure the other place will have criticisms and comment, and we will have improvements and additions—we feel that this Bill, as it stands, is a vast improvement on where we are. Although there is progress to be made, and there always will be, we believe that the Bill marks a useful point of progress for our country in fighting economic crime.

Question put and agreed to.

New clause 14 accordingly read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 3

Home Office review of the Tier 1 (Investor) visa scheme: publication

“Home Office review of the Tier 1 (Investor) visa scheme: publication

Within a day of the passage of this Act, the Secretary of State must publish in full the findings of the Home Office review of the Tier 1 (Investor) visa scheme which relate to economic crime.” —(Layla Moran.)

Brought up, and read the First time.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.

Police Conduct and David Carrick

Mary Robinson Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

I am the first person to say that this is obviously a disappointing, frustrating, sobering and chilling day for policing. It is regrettable and shameful that this has happened. I would also say that poorly behaved and criminal police officers are a minority and that we have tens of thousands of very brave, dedicated men and women all over the country who will be feeling the equivalent level of shame and disgust that we are expressing. This is not in their name. This is about changing the system to root out poor behaviour and so that everybody can be proud to be serving in our police force.

[Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)]

This case has once again highlighted the terrible internal processes in our police forces and the inability of people to speak up in a culture that actively works against their doing so. So many police officers will not raise issues with fellow officers because they fear for their jobs and their employment. Will my right hon. and learned Friend take the opportunity to do a root and branch investigation into the culture in the police forces, particularly with regard to the ability to speak up and for whistleblowers to have their voices heard?

[Suella Braverman]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. Police culture and whether there is a culture of fear, with people scared to speak up and call out unacceptable behaviour, is exactly what part 2 of the Lady Angiolini inquiry will cover. We need to pinpoint that precisely so that we can take action to ensure that there is an open, welcoming and professional environment in which everybody can thrive.

National Security Bill

Mary Robinson Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 16th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tom Tugendhat]

Oh, he does not. I do have trust in our jury system and I do have trust in the Great British people to make decisions appropriately. One of the decisions sometimes made by juries is to strike out a case because they disagree with it. I am afraid that is simply one of those—

[Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)]

The public interest defence has been mentioned on several occasions throughout this debate. Notwithstanding the strictures of national security and of this Bill, it is important that people have a reliable route that they can take when they want to expose wrongdoing. Does my right hon. Friend consider that an office of the whistleblower might be such a route? I know the public interest defence is very likely to come forward again.

[Tom Tugendhat]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise that. It is not specific to this Bill, but it is something that many of us have been considering for a while. I certainly agree that wider consideration is important in ensuring that those who have legitimate grievances and objections to what they may have been asked to do have a valid route for raising such questions.

I will go through a few of the other points very quickly. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) and my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Antony Higginbotham) raised the point about legal services, and they were absolutely right to do so. Let me be quite clear that this is about privileged legal co-operation. Therefore, that privilege should be exempt—it should absolutely be exempt—so that those who have access to legal rights should be able to exercise them without the state’s intervention. That is essential to the rule of law and, indeed, to the protection of human rights in our country.

I should also make it quite clear that the Government have heard very clearly the points made about civil legal aid. These will be receiving very serious consideration in the coming days, and I look forward to updating the House in due course on where that goes to.

I briefly thank for their insights my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland) and my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Ben Everitt) on the Government side, and of course my very dear friend, the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis). Although we disagree, again, he remains a very close friend, and I look forward to discussing more of these issues with him in the future. I shall leave it at that.

Question put and agreed to.

New clause 9 accordingly read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

New clause 3

Reviews of Parts 1, 4 and 5

‘(1) The operation of Parts 1, 4 and 5 of this Act must be reviewed by a person, or people, appointed by the Secretary of State.

(2) The operation of Part 4 must be reviewed by the person appointed by the Secretary of State under section 36(1) of the Terrorism Act 2006.

(3) The operation of Parts 1 and 5 must be reviewed by either—

(a) the person appointed by the Secretary of State under section 36(1) of the Terrorism Act 2006, or

(b) a different person appointed by the Secretary of State.

(4) Reviews under this section must be carried out in respect of—

(a) the 12-month period beginning with the day on which any section in this Part comes into force, and

(b) each subsequent 12-month period.

(5) Each review under subsection (1) must be completed as soon as reasonably practicable after the period to which it relates.

(6) The person or people mentioned in subsections (2) and (3) must send to the Secretary of State a report on the outcome of each review carried out under subsection (1) as soon as reasonably practicable after completion of the review.

(7) On receiving a report under subsection (6), the Secretary of State must lay a copy of it before Parliament.

(8) Section 36(6) of the Terrorism Act 2006 shall be read such that the “expenses” and “allowances” mentioned therein may include the discharge by the person or people of their functions under this section.’—(Holly Lynch.)

Brought up, and read the First time.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.

Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill

Mary Robinson Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 13th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to be called to speak on Second Reading of this important Bill.

To maintain the UK’s role and reputation as an international banking and business hub, we must have a transparent system with robust defences against money laundering and fraud, backed up by legislation. As we have heard, the Bill introduces vital reforms to Companies House and to limited partnerships. It also brings forward measures to ensure that law enforcement is equipped to handle the modern challenge of cryptoassets. We have to keep pace with the inevitable changes that result from the development and recognition of cryptocurrency as it moves from niche technology to the mainstream. It is a policy area that poses a unique challenge to law enforcement, with constantly evolving technology creating intangible assets that are largely unregulated and increasingly used to hide and move the proceeds of crime and enable malign states.

The value of losses from crypto-related scams reported to Action Fraud more than doubled over the previous year to £190 million in 2021. All fraud costs the UK economy £190 billion annually, with money laundering constituting an additional £100 billion.

This is money from hard-working individuals and businesses taken by criminals and used to perpetrate wars and terrorism, and technology is only making that easier for them. The Bill’s stated objective, which I welcome, is as follows:

“Strengthen the UK’s broader response to economic crime, in particular by giving law enforcement new powers to seize cryptoassets and enabling businesses in the financial sector to share information more effectively to prevent and detect economic crime.”

Increased powers will bolster the National Crime Agency and Serious Fraud Office, as well as the regulatory bodies, and are welcome. However, the Bill misses an opportunity to refer to and support the important role of whistleblowers in the fight against financial crime. The impact assessment produced by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy references PricewaterhouseCoopers’ global economic crime and fraud survey 2022, which found that the UK has a higher than average proportion of serious fraud carried out by an external perpetrator at 57% versus 39% globally. It notes that fighting external perpetrators is distinct from handling internal fraud, with external forces being “immune” to traditional fraud detection and prevention tools—including workplace frameworks and whistleblowing procedures.

The Government are in the process of reviewing whistleblowing guidance, which is welcome. However, the reality is that existing legislation applies only to employees— not to contractors, trustees, volunteers or many others who might hold vital information. It is estimated that just over 40% of fraud is detected through whistleblowing tips, and only half of those disclosures come from employees.

By their very nature, money laundering and economic crime are more often than not linked to serious organised crime gangs and hostile states. Without adequate protections, the stakes for an informed insider blowing the whistle are simply too high. With cryptoassets existing outside the realm of a centralised or governed system, it is unlikely that anyone with information about financial crime involving them will be employees, and therefore they will not be covered by the provisions of the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998, which is the one that oversees the protections of whistleblowers.

If protections are not to be afforded in this Bill, I hope the Government will support the aims of the all-party group on whistleblowing, which I chair, to create an office of the whistleblower to provide overarching protection for the very people we need to speak out and uncover the criminal activities that this Bill aims to curtail.

I welcome this important Bill, and I know that it will receive support. There are changes that could be considered, particularly with regards to whistleblowing, so I look forward to seeing the Bill go through to Committee.

Public Advocate (No. 2) Bill

Mary Robinson Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 15th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

It is now more than 33 years since the Hillsborough disaster, when 97 wholly innocent children, women and men, who were supporters of Liverpool football club, were unlawfully killed by the gross negligence of South Yorkshire police at the semi-final of the FA cup in Sheffield. Many thousands of survivors of that catastrophic event were traumatised by their experiences, and many of them suffer its terrible impact on their lives to this day. The families of those killed have also had to face unimaginable heartache, made worse by the behaviour of those responsible for the disaster in, even now, seeking to blame the victims and survivors for what happened. This 33-year long attempt by those responsible for the killings to evade their responsibility, and the lies and smears that they have repeatedly perpetrated and are still peddling, form the backdrop to this Bill. They still have an impact today: we need only refer to what was said at the Champions League final by those seeking to cover up the disaster of the organisation of that match.

The South Yorkshire police cover-up and smear campaign, begun on the day of the disaster, succeeded for many years in convincing public opinion that the Hillsborough disaster was caused by hooliganism, and that somehow those who died and the supporters who survived were responsible for what had happened, when they were all wholly innocent. Were it not for the fortitude, togetherness and determination of the families and survivors of Hillsborough, who fought a three-decades-long campaign for truth and justice, the truth would never have been set out or accepted, and the rightful inquest verdicts would never have been returned. The apology that families received from the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, in 2012, on the publication of the Hillsborough Independent Panel report, for what had happened to them and for the cover-up would never have been forthcoming, and some of those responsible would never have been put on trial.

It was not until just over a year ago, in May 2021, that all the remaining criminal trials of those responsible who had been charged collapsed without anyone being held to account. Our criminal justice system can be said to have failed catastrophically when it takes more than three decades to fail to convict those responsible for 97 unlawful killings. After all, the events were filmed, with much shown live on television, yet those responsible for the catastrophe and the cover-up that followed have got away without being held to account.

It took 27 years for the families of those who died to have correct inquest verdicts of unlawful killing handed down, after the accidental death verdicts were quashed in 2012. It took 23 years, and the publication of the work of the Hillsborough Independent Panel, for the full truth to be told and accepted fully by the legal and political establishment: the fans were not to blame; the police in charge on that day were.

We must learn the lessons, and ensure that never again will families bereaved by public disasters have to endure their lost loved ones being smeared and traduced; and never again will families have to spend more than three decades campaigning to get truth and justice for their wholly innocent loved ones. There will be more public disasters. There already have been in the intervening time. Hillsborough is an exceptionally bad case, but we can see in other public disasters some of the same problems arising for bereaved families who, through no fault of their own, are caught up in these tragedies—the Grenfell fire and the Manchester arena bombing to name but two. We have already started to see some of the same problems.

So more is needed. The law must be changed. Public authorities must be made to tell the truth. They must be prevented from using all the public money at their disposal to prevent the truth from coming out. Families must be at the heart of subsequent investigations. They must have a collective voice. They must have agency and the capacity to act to get to the truth much sooner than the Hillsborough families were able to.

Hillsborough shows that attempted cover-ups must be torpedoed at an early stage to prevent what happened to the Hillsborough families from happening to others caught up in public disasters. It was not a legal process. It was the Hillsborough Independent Panel, and the publication of documents using freedom of information principles, that finally succeeded in establishing the truth about Hillsborough for all to see, when many legal proceeding for years previously had failed. But it took 23 years.

If we facilitate the capacity for families to get such a process going much sooner, that can help to stop things going so wrong for so long. That is what the Bill intends to achieve. It would establish an independent, adequately resourced public advocate for those bereaved in public disasters, and injured survivors. It would locate the public advocate’s office in a Government Department, able to call on its resources but—crucially—totally independent of Government control and direction. It would require the public advocate to act if 50% plus one or more of the representatives of the deceased and injured survivors ask the advocate to act.

Lord Michael Wills and I have been introducing a Public Advocate Bill into the Commons and the Lords since 2016. That is why this is one is called the Public Advocate (No.2) Bill. It has already been introduced into the Lords this Session by my noble Friend. It would give families agency by putting them at the heart of the response to public disasters through the establishment of the independent public advocate, who, if the bereaved families wish it, and only then, will act as a representative of their interests, advocate and guide. As a data controller, the advocate would be able to establish a panel to review all documentation and produce a report at a much earlier stage than the 23 years it took for Hillsborough. So it would be cheaper and the process would be shorter. That enforced transparency would quickly put a stop to any venal attempts to deflect blame, such as that conducted by South Yorkshire police. Who could successfully conduct such a campaign in the forced glare of transparency, openness and the production of documentation directed by the public advocate at the behest of the families? Cover-ups and the spreading of lies and propaganda could be stopped at an early stage.

[Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is bringing an important matter to the House. On the issues around Hillsborough and other major incidents that have gone on for so long, obviously, there are issues about the cover-up, but also about ignoring whistleblowers. Does she agree that we need to look at listening to people who raise these issues in these important matters?

[Maria Eagle]

That is an important point, but not important in this context, I think.

The role of the independent advocate would not replace any of the usual legal advocates and would be an addition to prevent things from going wrong over such an extended time. The advocate would get involved only if the families wanted them to be involved. Too often, bereaved families and survivors feel like outsiders, mere adjuncts to proceedings to which others—often those who were at fault—are parties. Those most affected have least agency. These measures could make a real difference and stop what happened to the Hillsborough families ever happening again to other families.

The measures, along with the recommendations of Bishop James Jones’s 2017 report into the lessons to be learned from Hillsborough, are urgently needed. Together they form the Hillsborough Law Now campaign, of which I am a part. In addition to the independent public advocate put forward in the legislation, the recommendations consist of a statutory duty of candour for all public authorities, equality of arms at inquests and a charter for families bereaved through public tragedy.

The report was produced and the recommendations made in 2017. The Conservative party had a manifesto commitment in 2017 to establish an independent public advocate and conducted a consultation, though to date there has been no publication of its outcome and no Government response—there really should be.

The survivors and families of Hillsborough have already had to wait for 33 years. To make them wait five years for a response to a Government-commissioned report into the lessons to be learned is too long. It is more than a year now since the last of the criminal trials collapsed. Getting this Bill into Committee to start making the legal changes we need will enable us to show the families and the survivors that we are starting to take the relevant steps. I hope the Minister can allow us today to give this Bill a Second Reading and get it into Committee.

Economic Crime: Law Enforcement

Mary Robinson Excerpts

Thursday 7th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)]

I thank the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) and my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake)—the chairs of the all-party groups on anti-corruption and responsible tax and on fair business banking respectively—for securing this important debate. As chair of the all-party group for whistleblowing, I also thank them for making the APPG’s proposal to create an office for whistleblowers a policy recommendation as part of their “Economic Crime Manifesto”.

The recently published “Economic Crime Manifesto” presents the Government with good recommendations on how they can robustly tackle economic crime. Taken together, the manifesto’s four umbrellas for reform—transparency, enforcement, accountability and regulation—work to stop economic crime from all angles and at all levels. I ask the Government to give proper consideration to the detailed proposals made in the manifesto, if they are serious, as I know they are, about fighting economic crime.

The motion recognises the enormous cost of economic crime to the economy of £290 billion a year. It calls for an economic crime enforcement strategy and a restructuring of the fight against economic crime. That is much needed and part of that, in my view, is the office for whistleblowers. That office, which comes under the manifesto’s “Accountability” heading, would go a long way to supporting the detection of economic crime by supporting the individuals responsible for detecting the majority of fraud.

The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, in its 2022 “A Report to the Nations”, found that 43% of fraud was detected through whistleblowers versus just 15% by internal audit and 3% by external audit. Whistleblowers are the single most cost-effective detection tool yet, as it stands, there is little to incentivise whistleblowers to come forward with information. When they do, they face, at best, being ignored, stifled and gaslit and at worst, having their careers and lives destroyed. When an employee blows the whistle, they risk retaliation, harassment, unfair dismissal and blacklisting and, as we have heard in relation to some crimes, much worse.

Meanwhile, the bosses of economic crime gangs take money from hard-working taxpayers and funding from much-needed public services. Although the knowledge of having done the right thing may be sufficient reward for many, it is the personal cost that deters so many others. With little to look forward to but possible pain and suffering ahead, is it any wonder that people choose not to speak up?

To combat economic crime, we need a shift in society, where people feel confident to come forward and are supported in doing so. Disturbingly, the National Crime Agency believes that just 20% of incidents of fraud are reported. Although the Office for National Statistics crime survey reports more than 3 million incidents of fraud a year, the true figure could be five times that.

While a whistleblowing-positive culture will uncover more economic crime that will need investigating, the office for whistleblowers would support law enforcement. The office would be responsible for setting, monitoring and enforcing standards for the management of whistleblowing cases, would provide advice services and a clear avenue for disclosures, and would direct investigations and handle redress for whistleblowers. Although the current whistleblowing legislation covers only employees, anyone who blows the whistle—witnesses, contractors and many others—would be supported by the office for whistleblowers. If we want to combat economic crime effectively, we need to know about instances of it, to understand the scale. If we want to understand the scale, we need those with the information to come forward. If we want people to come forward, we need them to be able to do so without repercussions.

Serious and organised crime funds gangs and results in public and private money co-mingling with drugs, human trafficking, arms dealing and more. At a time when the state and individuals can least afford it, billions of pounds are being funnelled into illegal activities, despite modern and sophisticated crime detection techniques. Despite Government efforts over recent years, we are continuing to lose vast sums to criminals. That suggests to me that a new approach to handling economic crime is needed. I thank the right hon. Member for Barking and my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton for securing this important debate; I am happy to support the motion.

HM Passport Office Backlog

Mary Robinson Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

The simple answer is that, yes, more staff are being recruited but I will address that in more detail later.

[Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)]

This issue has undoubtedly caused a great deal of distress, with many people having had to wait up to the wire before getting their passport. Like others, I am grateful to the Minister, the hub and the Passport Office for working with my staff to get the best for my constituents. I want to say thank you on behalf of one of my constituents, who applied for his British passport on the day of his citizenship ceremony in May and, with the help of the Passport Office, was able to get his passport and travel abroad on business.

[Kevin Foster]

I thank my hon. Friend; the team who dealt with the application will greatly appreciate her giving that example.

National Security Bill

Mary Robinson Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 6th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sir Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak after the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), who in admirable brevity covered the gamut of the Bill. The House will be relieved to know that my speech on Second Reading will be even more concise than that. First, I welcome and support the thrust of this Bill, and I echo the comments made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) and congratulate him warmly on his knighthood.

I want to develop a further point about what we do not see in this Bill. I know that is warming to a theme we have already heard from a number of contributors to this debate, but it is, I am afraid, one that we cannot get away from. This was an opportunity not just to recast the pre-war legislation from 1911 right through to the late ’30s, but for us to do something to a Bill that, when it became law in 1989, was addressing a world that was already vanishing. That Act came right at the end of the cold war, as the Berlin wall tumbled, and already it was somewhat behind its time. That has become even more apparent with the rise of the internet, the complete transmogrification of how disclosures can now be made and the myriad scenarios that now exist in regard to the unauthorised disclosure of classified material.

It is a matter of regret that the Government have not chosen to pursue reform of the Official Secrets Act 1989 in this Bill. I get the point that this is difficult, and the Home Secretary rightly made that point on a number of occasions in response to Members’ interventions at the beginning of the debate, but frankly, it is the job of this House to do difficult. We are here to do difficult. That is what our voters send us to do, and it is right on Second Reading to talk about what opportunities have potentially been missed.

I know that the scope of this Bill has been carefully crafted by the draftspeople. Knowing them as I do, I respect their work and they will have had—certainly in this case—clear instructions from policymakers. That might mean that I cannot table any amendment that I would seek to table, but I will continue to explore the matter, because it is too important an issue to leave for another occasion. The issue that I wish to deal with is the question of what to do with disclosures that are made in the public interest and in circumstances that clearly support the public interest.

Let me set out what I regard as a two-limbed test for any such defence to apply. Of course, this is not just an idea of mine; it is a carefully crafted set of proposals from the Law Commission that was published back in 2020, when I was still in the Government. I read the recommendations at the time and reread them in preparation for this debate. It is interesting to note that at the beginning of its chapter on the public interest defence, the Law Commission’s provisional conclusion before the publication of its final report was that there should not be a public interest defence but, as a result of the consultation it carried out, it changed its mind and came to the clear view that there was a clear case—a mandate, if you like—for the introduction of such a mechanism.

Currently, we have no mechanism that allows us as legislators or, indeed, us as a country to strike a reasonable balance between the importance of secrecy and the importance of accountability, while ensuring that those such as Julian Assange who dump data in a way that has no regard for the safety of operatives and other affected people are still subject to criminal sanction. In other words, this is not an attempt to try to open the door to create a free-for-all; it is an attempt to allow people to act carefully and in good conscience in a way that clearly serves the public interest.

Currently, in effect we delegate our responsibility as legislators to individual juries. As you know, Madam Deputy Speaker, I have spoken many times of my great belief in the jury system. I have probably addressed more juries than most Members in my work as a criminal barrister, both prosecuting and defending. I have huge faith in the jury system—it is a cornerstone of our liberty, and I mean that with every fibre of my being—but it is just plain wrong, in a society such as ours, for us, dealing as we do with the complexities of modern life, in effect to wash our hands of the process and leave it to individual juries. However carefully directed juries might be and however careful are the arguments put forward by counsel or advocates, it seems to me to be an abrogation of our responsibility.

To those who say that this idea is unprecedented, I say that that just is not the case. Plenty of examples of public interest defences exist in law. Indeed, the Law Commission set out a number of them—for example, section 40 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, and the well-known Criminal Justice Act 1988, which deals with a person who has an item with a blade or a point in a public place. There are legal defences that place the onus in law on the defendant to prove that they were acting lawfully, so we are not asking for something revolutionary. We are not suggesting something that is wholly out of place; this idea is well known to the criminal law and can equally apply to disclosures made by public servants, journalists and people acting in the public interest. It is important to remember that we should not focus on the occupation, profession or rank of the individual—it is not about journalists; it is about material that might have that public interest value. We have to be really precise in our terminology.

[Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)]

My right hon. and learned Friend is making some excellent points—all of which I agree with so far—particularly about the ability for people to come forward and state that they have seen wrongdoing. So often, we rely on people who are inside an organisation, or others, to point out that something is going wrong. I totally agree that we should have a public interest defence. My right hon. and learned Friend will know that the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 provides such a defence; should that not be extended to a lot of other areas rather than apply just to those in employment?

[Sir Robert Buckland]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who speaks with conviction and passion on this issue. She recently introduced a 10-minute rule Bill on whistleblowing and works very hard on that issue on behalf of many people who have been prejudiced as a result of the current position. She is right to indirectly advert to other legislation. The Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 again sets out a very reasonable precedent for this House to adopt.

In the place of an arbitrary, case-by-case, unpredictable situation that depends on myriad different facts, we can create a structured defence that sets out very clearly the circumstances in which the public interest can be defined and assessed by a tribunal of fact, including the way in which the disclosure was made, the subject matter of the disclosure, the gravity of the conduct exposed, and the harm caused. All those factors can help to determine what is the public interest. Looking at the manner of the disclosure, we have concepts such as good faith, whether the extent of disclosure was no more than reasonably necessary, whether the individual believes that the material—the documentation—is substantially true, and whether there was a question of personal gain. All these factors can be prayed in aid, and indeed brought into law, to exclude those who equate data dumping with serving the public interest. I do not believe that any Member of this House would condone such reckless and dangerous behaviour.

The hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), who is not in her place, has been right, in her interventions, to remind us that this type of defence is not unique to the Five Eyes. Indeed, Canada, New Zealand and Australia already have a similar type of provision in their domestic law, so this would not be a question of creating prejudice or disadvantage to the United Kingdom in its important role as a member of the Five Eyes.

I have the advantage of having served in Government as a Secretary of State who, among other things, was responsible for warrantry; I can say in all candour that there is probably no more serious task for a Secretary of State to undertake than to assess the evidence before them when deciding whether to issue what can often be quite intrusive orders that have the effect of seriously infringing the normal civil liberties that we, as public citizens, all enjoy. But we do it because we know that there is a wider public interest to be served in making sure that the intelligence services, the police and other agencies that are entitled to make these applications are able to keep us safe. That is something that all of us who have held high office believe in, as do all Members of this House.

Therefore, it is with an element of regret that I say to my hon. Friend—my good friend—the Security Minister, who I know will steward this Bill through with his usual care and concern, that we have missed an opportunity here. If it is not to be in this Bill, then the introduction of a public interest defence must come sooner or later if we are to avoid the randomness of decisions made by jurors who are not legislators and to whom we have, in effect, delegated our authority in a way that does not do this issue any real justice whatsoever.