Public Interest Disclosure (Protection) Bill

Debate between Nickie Aiken and Alan Whitehead

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 25th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

I will be both brief and supportive, as all the speeches this afternoon in this debate have been: brief, because I want to ensure that we get the Bill through this afternoon, and supportive, because it is a Bill that needs the support of the whole House over the next period.

We need whistleblowers across our country to keep businesses and public activities clean and straight and, indeed, to avert the tragedies that may result from internal cultures of denial when things go wrong. The hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford), whom I warmly congratulate not only on bringing this Bill forward this afternoon, but on her tenacity and hard work over a period of years in bringing attention to this issue and what we can do about it, has given a number of examples of where whistleblowing could have made a difference. There are many other examples that we can all think of: Grenfell, the collapse of Carillion and the North Staffs hospital, which we know from the Francis report, and indeed internationally, where maybe one whistleblower might have saved hundreds of lives with the Boeing 737 MAX disasters. We know that the current legislation that we have, the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998, is not adequate—good though it was at the time—to ensure that whistleblowers get the protection and support they need.

[Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

I understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but my concern, having learned what happened in the Labour party with the antisemitic complaints and staff members who blew the whistle and were ignored, is that the Labour party itself has questions to answer regarding whistleblowing. Does he agree?

[Dr Whitehead]

Yes indeed; as the hon. Lady will know, that is happening at the moment, in terms of the support for those whistleblowers at that time in the history of the Labour party and what is now being done about that. That is an example of what is important in this debate.

As I said, the current law is simply inadequate to support whistleblowers properly. As the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire has said, it dissolves down into employment tribunals, where individuals must face their employer, and there is no other way to access justice at the moment. Relevant individuals such as trustees, trainees and volunteers are excluded from the law; there are no official standards for whistleblowing that employers must meet or recognised procedures for them to follow; regulators are unaccountable for the way they treat whistleblowers, and whistleblowers cannot bring a claim against a regulator, but only against their employer. Whistleblowers do not get legal aid and must pay for all their legal fees personally, as I believe the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mary Robinson) mentioned. Even if they win, they face not being able to recover those costs.

This Bill puts most of those problems right. It extends the types of wrongdoing that can be reported to cover gross mismanagement, serious abuse of authority and so on. It extends protection of those who are perceived as whistleblowers. It provides remedies for close relatives who suffer detriments following whistleblowing. Civil penalties are provided for in relation to a range of infringements, and criminal offences are introduced as a backstop for certain types of non-compliance, including retaliation against a whistleblower.

Inevitably, in addition to those remedies, there are other things that could be done to support whistleblowing. The Labour party has suggested giving protected status to whistleblowers and imposing a statutory duty on employers to prevent victimisation. What I think is not in dispute is that this Bill covers light years in the distance between where we were with protection for whistleblowers in 1998 and where we should be now, and for that reason I think it deserves the support of the full House.